The lack of direction when it comes to Cybersecurity in Peru

 Peru is a country with a great diversity of natural resources, and strategically located, which makes a variety of professional paths available that graduates from the different secondary schools can choose to follow. Obviously, the decision to study a specific career depends not only on the applicant's skills, but also on the economic benefit that the career in question can provide in the future, the country's industry requirement for these professionals, etc.

In addition to the careers already established in the country, for example: medicine, law, various engineering, economics, etc., there are many careers that are destined for the future due to the greater use of technology in this era of the world, especially Information Technologies (IT). But IT, in its vast variety, has a discipline that is very important at the moment, but apparently in Peru only two higher education institutions in the leading sector are making efforts to create Peruvian professionals in this discipline, it is the Information Security, these are ESAN University (Master's level) and the National Engineering University (UNI for its acronym in Spanish) (Undergraduate level) [1, 2].

It is important to mention that Cybersecurity is a discipline in high demand around the world, due to many reasons, but basically due to the fact that a good part of the banking and commercial transactions that we do every day use electronic systems, either from the web or mobile phone [3]. This high demand discipline which is based on the constant use of the acquired knowledge, frequent updating, and an environment full of challenges, means that these professionals can work from Peru in other countries as well.Despite the fact that our country has been the victim of different computer attacks (including attacks against armed forces) in which personal data was illegally extracted, there is little or no interest from other educational institutions in properly creating this professional career, in addition It is more than disappointing that the Peruvian government, through its regulators of the different business areas, do not have clear and mandatory Cybersecurity regulations [4]. An additional factor is the little or no interest that private companies have in protecting consumer data, which significantly increases the risk of identity theft that consumers can suffer since there is no communication when companies suffer computer attacks with illegal data extraction.

It is this lack of awareness about the importance of Cybersecurity that not only makes educational institutions have no interest in creating these faculties, which will have negative consequences in the near future. Now, it is not only the fact of creating awareness in the governmental and private sphere, but also educating ordinary citizens that our digital identity is more than important in a world in which data will soon completely replace an identity in a printed card.

References:

1. https://www.esan.edu.pe/conexion-esan/esan-graduate-school-of-business-presenta-la-maestria-en-gestion-de-la-ciberseguridad-y-privacidad
2. https://rpp.pe/tecnologia/mas-tecnologia/uni-inaugura-carrera-de-ingenieria-de-ciberseguridad-noticia-1428538
3. https://www.isc2.org/News-and-Events/Press-Room/Posts/2022/10/20/ISC2-Research-Reveals-the-Cybersecurity-Profession-Must-Grow-by-3-4-Mil-to-Close-Workforce-Gap#:~:text=Despite%20adding%20464%2C000%20more%20cybersecurity,not%20have%20enough%20cybersecurity%20employees.
4. https://larepublica.pe/politica/gobierno/2022/10/08/hackers-en-la-dini-roban-secretos-militares-peruanos-de-ultimos-cinco-anos-guacamaya-leaks-ejercito-fuerzas-armadas
5. https://rpp.pe/tecnologia/mas-tecnologia/peru-tercer-pais-mas-ciberatacado-en-america-latina-noticia-1359003