Ana Forsyth [00:00:00]:
I think we need to think about cyber safety and cyber security. Safety is about keeping you and your identity safe in the real world, as opposed to cyber security, which is more around keeping your devices and your data secure online. Noting that cybersecurity would be a big part of cyber safety, but they’re not really interchangeable.

Karissa Breen [00:00:26]:
Joining me today is Ana Forsyth, Associate Director, from KPMG. And today we’re discussing cyber education. How early do we start? So, Anna, thanks for joining and welcome.

Ana Forsyth [00:00:48]:
Hi, Karissa. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Karissa Breen [00:00:51]:
Well, conversations around people saying out there in the market, you know, we’ve got to get this into schools, you’ve got to get it into your kids, in terms of cyber, the education. So let’s start right there. How early do we start, Anna? What would you say is an approximate age?

Ana Forsyth [00:01:06]:
I think a lot of people will answer that with as early as you like. I’ll answer that with, for me, it depends. It depends if we’re talking about awareness of cyber safety or education

Karissa Breen [00:01:17]:
in

Ana Forsyth [00:01:17]:
the cyber security space. So I guess breaking that down a little bit, awareness of cyber safety, I personally think should and can commence as soon as a child has access to tech in early childhood. It can start with learning safe practices visually, I guess, from their carers, the types of things that your parents or the adult responsible might close down, and good practices like accessing the tech in short bouts. On the other hand, education in cybersecurity is probably more relevant for kids 6 or 7 years and up, I would say, noting the difference in language abilities and just general understanding of, of different concepts among the kids between, you know, ages 0 to 7 differences can, can be massive. I guess one thing that I like to think about is how you teach kids to swim early, ideally, because you want them to survive if you’re ever not there, but you don’t not allow them near water ever. So similarly, kids can find themselves faced with tech outside of their carers reach. So they should be taught about the good and the bad and how to cope with the bad rather than not have access to it until years years on.

Karissa Breen [00:02:26]:
Okay. So you obviously the demarcation between, you know, side of safety and then education and awareness. Maybe I’ll ask a rudimentary question. How young do kids get phones? I know that sounds like a dumb I’m not a I know that you’re your parent, your mother, so you would have better understanding. I mean, when I got a phone, I was probably like 12. But in saying that, I got like a Nokia, like, 32 good thing. There was no Internet or anything like that, right? So it’s a little different. But I know from speaking to people generally, they say, well, I give my child a phone because, you know, if they’re they’re at work and they need to communicate, you know, their their daughter or their son or whatever, and they said it’s the best way to do that.

Karissa Breen [00:03:06]:
That’s why they have a phone. And also I can trap them and, you know, more of them a security, like physical security point of view as well. So but I’m just curious, like, how young are kids getting phones nowadays?

Ana Forsyth [00:03:19]:
I went and spoke to a year 5 year 6 group together, and when I asked who here has a phone, a third put their hand up. I don’t know whether that particular set of classrooms is relevant across Australia, but I suspect it’s a good indicator. I think we need to think about cyber safety and cyber security. So sorry to bring it back again to, you know, definitions, but safety is about keeping you and your identity safe in the real world, as opposed to cybersecurity, which is more around keeping your devices and your data secure online. Noting that cybersecurity would be a big part of cybersecurity, but they’re not really interchangeable. So once you grapple with that a little bit, you put it in context of you gave your kid a phone at age 5. Will they be safe with it? It’s a parent or a carer’s choice.

Karissa Breen [00:04:08]:
But then we’ve got people in the market saying, you know, I’m going to get this into schools and all these types of things. So are we going to start to see this come in earlier and earlier? And look, on one hand, it’s like, well, strange danger that they taught us, you know, someone asked you to do, you know, look at the dog in the car. You don’t do it. Obviously, we’re trying to, you know, bring in the education from a secure cybersecurity point of view and I get that. But do you think it’s gonna be like, the child’s born? It’s gonna be, look, you need to understand about cybersecurity. Is that is that gonna be where we get to in the future?

Ana Forsyth [00:04:41]:
It’s quite possible because most children’s digital footprint these days starts before they’re even born. So in some ways, one could argue that they’re already at risk or at least exposed from as soon as their parents start posting photos about them on social media, and it’s available online. The answer is yes. I reckon it will start sooner and sooner, earlier and earlier. You talk about getting a phone at 12 these days. It’s not unheard of to see a kid that’s 7 or 8, you know, year year 1 or whatever, saying that they have a phone or they’re about to get a phone. And there are, of course, those exceptions that are for medical reasons and so on, but I think we will see this trend just keep picking up. Yeah.

Karissa Breen [00:05:25]:
Can you as well, like, when I go back to even I’m just using myself as a reference because I’d say I’m not I’m not a parent. But you know, when we had to go home from school and obviously our hands would work and my dad would work away. So it’s like my mom said, when you get home, you have to call on the landline to say, like, you’re at home and you stay type of thing. You’d have a school bus or sometimes you’d collect free from school or whatever it was. But do you think that now, like, you don’t really have landlines anymore, so it’s like, well, you kind of have to call me on the phone, your mobile phone to say your home and etcetera. So is it kind of just swapped out the landline? And like I said back then, calling someone on a mobile phone was like a luxury. You just didn’t do it and be like super quick. So do you think that is just because times have evolved and that they all keep? Do you have cell phones in there?

Ana Forsyth [00:06:12]:
Well, that’s an interesting point because what I’ve personally noticed from my experience with my kids at their school is that we’ve taken a step backwards in terms of helicopter parenting to a degree and standing at the gate next to them until they go in. And I’m not here to judge whether that’s right or wrong. Each carry their own choices. But I do see a lot less of walking, biking, bussing, and a lot more of the pickup and drop off and waiting at the gate until they’re in or when they’ve come out. So whether they ask a grandparent or a friend or do carpooling, because I would have thought like you that they would get home and need to make a phone call, but what I’m noticing is an interesting other trend around how parents are approaching it.

Karissa Breen [00:06:58]:
Why would you think that’s the case? Is it because parents are parenting, you know, differently now to, you know, probably how you and I grew up? Like, I think the parenting style has changed.

Ana Forsyth [00:07:09]:
Potentially. I think from generation to generation, it does anyway. Right? But, it’s interesting that with more freedom of technology, what I personally noticed is less responsibility giving to the child where you would tell them, Okay. You’re on your own. You’re a big kid now. You get to walk yourself there and home. And again, of course, it depends where you live and how far away it is and if you have to change buses and just how young the kid is, but compared to my generation or yours as you were talking, about before, I saw an interesting change.

Karissa Breen [00:07:43]:
Yeah. I think at one point I used to bite to school. I hated that. I just felt exhausted about it when I got beds.

Ana Forsyth [00:07:49]:
I think it’s, and to come back to the original question about how early and so on, different stakeholders, different ages, different levels of interaction, relevant and appropriate topics. But it’s not all about the kids. It’s about parents as a set of stakeholders leaning into cyber safety and cybersecurity for kids. As soon as they learn they’re pregnant would be my recommendation, and maybe then they’ll make informed choices around responsibility levels and when to introduce the technology and what sort of, things to give access to. And I mean, while I’m on it, teachers are a different set of stakeholders again, but cybersecurity isn’t mandatory as a module at all. It’s not even touched upon in, teaching degrees. So there’s a whole external environment or or ecosystem to consider with how early do we start.

Karissa Breen [00:08:37]:
Okay. I wanna go into this a bit more. This is quite interesting. I haven’t really spoken a lot on this on the show in the past. So going back to the parents. So obviously, again, forget about you being a practitioner, putting your parental hat. What is it that other parents that perhaps when you’re going to a school with the, you know, dropping your kids off and all that, what are they seem to be worried about generally, would you say?

Ana Forsyth [00:08:59]:
I think mostly the online grooming comes up a lot because all of them game, and literally, I mean all of them. When I asked the question, even of year ones, everyone put their their hand up that they had gained at one point or another on an iPad, whether or not it was their tablet rather or their carer’s tablet, everyone put their hand up. So this is real. This happens in Australia every day, and most parents would have this at the back of their mind and would be concerned. What they do with it is a different story. Do they sit with the child while the child is gaming or watching YouTube videos or whatnot? Do they talk to them about what to do if someone starts to talk to them, how to respond, what information not to give out, etcetera. That once again comes down to the carer’s education on these matters.

Karissa Breen [00:09:51]:
So, okay, I wanna follow-up a little bit more. So how are parents then and again, I I don’t speak to have all the answers, but generally, how are they sort of going about managing sort of the conversation with their children around like online grooming? Are they seeking out answers or are they saying that there’s not enough answers out there? Are they saying schools need to be doing more of this? What’s sort of the common trend?

Ana Forsyth [00:10:14]:
I think they definitely always say that schools need to do more of this, whether that’s right or wrong. Sure teachers have an opinion on that too. You and I had a conversation a little while ago about the communication around cybersecurity that’s out there in the community, and whether the messaging is correct and whether the approach that we take to send messaging are adequate. Where does a parent go to get information to educate themselves in order to talk to their child about grooming or anything like that? And we we agreed that going to, you know, the ACSC’s website or the eSafety Commissioner’s website may be something some of them do, but it may also not be the first thing that comes to mind. And then, of course, there’s the level of is that easy, simple, straightforward to find information on those websites or not? Again, I’m not sure. I haven’t really polled parents on on that particular topic, but definitely more can be done. Schools are only one vehicle for that. Talks by industry to schools, I’ve come to realize are quite crucial.

Ana Forsyth [00:11:17]:
And then supplying booklets or supplying things, resources for the kids to take home and continue the conversation at home whilst informing and educating the parents is actually a very good avenue. And the kids are excited about it, and the parents get exposed to something that they may or may not have thought of. Or if they did, they may or may not have done anything about.

Karissa Breen [00:11:39]:
So if other parents were to know, and they you probably shared sort of what you do as a profession. Are they sort of then quizzing you a bit more? And what do you sort of tell your kids at all? What are you sort of seeing in industry? Are they people sort of approaching you a bit more, would you say?

Ana Forsyth [00:11:51]:
I think if they know my professional background or my academic research, they might. But otherwise, this is actually not a conversation that comes up a lot. So if you mingle at the gate or if you catch up at a birthday party or even with, you know, on play dates or with friends that have kids. It’s not discussed very often, and perhaps it it should and could be. It comes back to the communication piece. You know about the sleep slot. But that sort of thing comes to mind even to me, and I didn’t grow up with it. Right? But that’s because it’s something that speaks.

Ana Forsyth [00:12:25]:
It’s really important, and everyone knows about it, and everyone got on board. The kids would relate. We don’t have anything like that on just grooming online, but just in general, how to approach this. But that’s, that’s a possibility. It’s just that someone has to go and create it and disseminate it in the right way at the right scale.

Karissa Breen [00:12:45]:
Bica, before you were obviously, academic research. Now, I know you have PhD, because I participated in some of your research originally a couple of years ago. You spoke around, you know, educational pathways to, you know, national security, resilience, for example. So maybe talk us through maybe your thesis generally, then also some of the the insights that was shared within that thesis as well, if you wouldn’t mind.

Ana Forsyth [00:13:10]:
So this goes back a few years now. I finished in 2020, but interestingly, I feel like the dial hasn’t shifted as much as it should have in this time in Australia. But the thesis essentially argued that cyber education is key on the pathway to our nation having a solid chance at national cyber resilience for our future generations. So what I meant, the way I defined national cyber resilience was as the ability to flexibly and adequately withstand and recover from challenges the future of cybersecurity will present. It is understood to require both a raised level of basic understanding and knowledge of cybersecurity across the nation, as well as a far more substantial talent pool of cybersecurity professionals. So it’s kind of a 2 pronged approach to national cyber resilience, if you will. But in a nutshell, it’s an examination of education overall in Australia from a cyber security lens, progressively narrowing in from a broad overview of education and the Australian curriculum through to STEM, technology, and finally, cyber. This was done in a systematic way through exploring education at primary and secondary level and then tertiary stages, and by that I mean higher education, so universities, vocational, which is TAFEs or VETS, and the certification space.

Ana Forsyth [00:14:35]:
I reviewed the missing skills and the missing people in our current workforce and our foreign dependency. And then I used this trial as a case study for their cyber education and their cyber workforce, broadly speaking. I think they call it the CyberSpark confluence. And interestingly, I recently read about CyberSpike in Estonia, which is kind of their equivalent. And that’s it in a nutshell. And I made some policy recommendations, overarchingly, and some low hanging fruit sort of tactical approaches if we were to really want to move things along.

Karissa Breen [00:15:10]:
So you said before, Anna, like, nothing’s really changed. Why would you say nothing’s changed though? Is it because things fall on deaf ears, people are boring, they don’t know how to communicate with other humans? Why isn’t it? Like, why haven’t they not have evolved at all?

Ana Forsyth [00:15:24]:
I don’t think at all is a fair term on my part. So definitely cybersecurity has been introduced and has been rather deployed more broadly through the Australian curriculum at different levels in different ways. Actual cyber threats, as well as privacy, are tackled a lot more heavily and more uniformly, although we’re not definitely not there yet. But what hasn’t moved so much, which really makes me sad, if I can say that, is the integration and interconnection piece hasn’t come as far along as I would’ve liked to see it come. What I mean by that is imagine a flower with petals around it, and at the center of it is our workforce. And the petals are things like universities, vocational, self learning, certifications, schooling, and industry. And so these pedals all have huge weight in how we tackle cyber resilience nationally, And they don’t interconnect very well at the moment. So it’s not a nice flower with petals overlapping or however you wanna visualize it.

Ana Forsyth [00:16:36]:
They’re silos still. What I mean is, for example, schools and vocational. So say a Cert 3 that might do 4 days at school and a day at TAFE. That’s I don’t think that’s even under development. Schools and territories have to agree. It’s quite a substantial undertaking, but it would be so worth it. So that was school and vocational. Then vocational and higher, so a SAT for diploma could get credits, credit equivalents in an undergrad degree if someone started off at VET or TAFE and then decided to progress into university.

Ana Forsyth [00:17:12]:
Very little of that interconnection exists. A little bit of work has been done, but nowhere near it. It it’s not at a national scale. It’s not readily available. Then we’ve got schools in higher education. You could have mini 1st year modules from universities that could be offered to students that are excelling at schools as an option or micro credential support, things like that. That’s that’s not addressed. But also, and very importantly, industry and how that comes into things.

Ana Forsyth [00:17:40]:
So industry and schools, work experience. How often do you hear of work experience being talked about broadly and students that might have an aptitude for cyber or for tech being recommended to go to work experience in cyber security. Not a whole lot. Industry and vocational, so traineeships, not a lot of that either. Industry and higher, so internships, vacationer programs with or without credits attached, preferably with and in grad programs. So all of these things might exist a little bit in some pockets or areas of Australia, but they’re definitely not coming together nicely. It’s not a nice overarching program. It’s not something that’s available everywhere, unlike in Israel, for example, with their Cyberspark Confluence.

Ana Forsyth [00:18:30]:
And I would love to see more of that, more industry involvement even in how our the curriculums are developed. And there is some, you know, industry was consulted when the Australian curriculum was created. But how often do we check-in? How often do we refresh? It’s the same with university courses. There’s a lot of complaints in industry that some university courses, or a lot of them, by the time they get you through a 3 year degree, a lot of the tech has moved along, for example. There’s just not enough communication and interconnection in my view.

Karissa Breen [00:19:04]:
Just going back to my question, I said, what I mean at all. What I mean by that is, is it hitting the mark? Is it resonating with people? And the answer to that, from what I’ve just listened, is probably not. Because it’s kind of like saying to someone you should go and lose weight, but then and then your intention is there to lose it, but you’re not doing it effectively. You’ve not really, it’s not moving the needle. Correct.

Ana Forsyth [00:19:30]:
A 100%. Yes.

Karissa Breen [00:19:32]:
So what do we do now?

Ana Forsyth [00:19:33]:
Well, we implement my PhD recommendations, of course. No. I’m joking. In all seriousness though, I think a a scattergun approach of initiatives, which is kind of what we have now, is is hopeless unless we have strategic drive.

Karissa Breen [00:19:46]:
This is the part that I think gets to me a bit in the industry is I get it, but then it should be driven by government. Yeah. But then it’s like, yeah, but then it falls on deaf ears. People are not looking at ATMs, to be right you said. Parents that are not I mean, I’m out here on the at the cold face each day. People are not thinking like that. There’s a disconnect. But then it’s like, yeah, but the whole thing shouldn’t be driven by pay PNV.

Karissa Breen [00:20:09]:
The whole thing shouldn’t be driven by government. So it’s like, we wanna have alignment, but then who gets to own

Ana Forsyth [00:20:15]:
it? That’s a good question. I suggested personally that a great thing that we could do, for example, and it is literally just one example, would be to create an educational arm to the Australian Cybersecurity Centre. But ultimately, I guess government is accountable for education even if it’s at state level, granted, in Australia. But in terms of preparing for the future, in terms of making us safe in every other way we look to the government. So this is not any different. But where it should be different is in the actual genuine cooperation and collaboration with academia and industry to make progress and to to make a difference. And I think that is possible because whilst there might be bickering around who can lead this in private, in public, you establish something, and then they just need to bring the right stakeholders along. Once it’s done, it’s done.

Ana Forsyth [00:21:18]:
It’s not like it’s different organizations that could decide to bail because they don’t have enough budget this year or because their interests is have shifted onto something else. That that’s why I think you would come back to government in an ideal world. And it’s not an ideal solution, but it’s kind of how I tackled it. Also because government are the ones that will be able to change the legal framework. So if there are any changes to legislation or even to the constitution, which is highly unlikely, but that is always possible, never say never. It still sits with government. And what I found interesting in the thesis, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly off the top of my head the where in in the constitution is covered, but essentially, there is something that says that if something becomes a matter of national security, then it can be mandated to be taught. I probably didn’t use the exact perfect wording there, but say we have something like what Estonia had, and we are reduced to not having access to anything.

Ana Forsyth [00:22:22]:
We’re under attack like Estonia in 2007. Once we rise from the ashes like a phoenix of Cyberpros, we would then probably look to mandate things so that our future generations are not as exposed, and we would make more we would be more open to making drastic changes and making changes full stop. But, you know, that’s pretty awful. No one wants that to happen. That would be devastating. Unfortunately, in my thesis, I quoted Benjamin Franklin, and I said, By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail. I’m personally old for a last minute, but this isn’t one of those. Last minute won’t cut it.

Ana Forsyth [00:23:01]:
And I think legislative support or a net that underpins it all is necessary, which is why I come back to ideal leaders would sit with government provided they have the right amount of collaboration.

Karissa Breen [00:23:18]:
But I feel like they’ve been trying to do this for years. And, well, I’m gonna raise you the example. So there was a government tank, whatever you wanna call it, still backed by government that failed. Oh, cyber. What had happened to them? Nowhere. Tried to do all these things, collaborate, did this fail? They weren’t existing anymore. I get it. However, I think that there needs to be a conversation, needs to start somewhere.

Karissa Breen [00:23:40]:
I’ve just seen a lot of these things in my tenure in this space. Nothing seems to have moved the needle, especially with government. And I think that, again, they’ll do all of these things and they they promise the world and then nothing ends up getting delivered. And then we’re back in the same, if not worse, position.

Ana Forsyth [00:23:57]:
I don’t think that we gave it the right shot yet. So what I mean by that is NICE over in the US, which is under NIST. NICE initially stood for National Initiative For Cyber Education, but they’re no longer an initiative. They’re a permanent endeavor, I guess. And so they, they just call themselves NICE. They were established specifically for this, for the cyber educational ecosystem and for growing it. And they went from nothing, literally came into existence with a team of 2 or 3 people originally, to 1,000,000 of dollars being, poured in, but for actual results. And so they started creating they created a conference for teachers from scratch that they run, and that’s very popular and continues to grow every year.

Ana Forsyth [00:24:43]:
They have a number of initiatives that that are running, but they work with academia. They work with industry. And yet they’re government. They’re government based entirely and government ran, and yet they’re looked upon very favorably. So that’s what I mean in the sense that what we’ve had through government, I think, has been a bit of a scattergun approach where depending on priorities, we’ve focused on it, we’ve put money in it. But it’s been isolated initiatives, and some of them haven’t continued. So, for example, I worked at Questacon in the Cyber Ready program. The funding ran out, and that’s it.

Ana Forsyth [00:25:20]:
It was, it was an initiative under the previous Cyber Security Strategy, and it was joint between Home Affairs and Department of Industry at the time. And everyone was really hyped, and it was a really exciting initiative that especially looked at teachers. And, and we didn’t really get to talk about this, but teachers are the missing link, and a lot of money is put into students and student programs and things like that, but teachers are left behind, and yet they carry the brunt of it, in my view and based on my research. So we had that initiative. It was ran out of Questacon. It was a program that ran out of money. That’s that. So the intent is there.

Ana Forsyth [00:25:55]:
Everyone agrees that it’s important. Some money got allocated to it, and then it was it was done. And that’s very unfortunate, but if you had a permanently established body that looks after education and all aspects of education. So from teachers looking for resources through to teacher networking, through to parents and advice on how to talk to your kids, through to what programs exist for students because that’s another thing. A lot of the time, there’s so many things in different areas or in different pockets. We no no one really knows what’s available where and when. A sort of like a central body, that would be ideal, very similar to how NICE operates. And like I said, NICE was it’s successful.

Karissa Breen [00:26:37]:
So from what I’m hearing from what you’re saying is, do you think it’s just our government in Australia perhaps that is lacking more initiatives? So you just raised some examples, which makes sense?

Ana Forsyth [00:26:48]:
I think NICE probably got lucky at the right time when it was established. The government at the time that that brought it into being decided to fund it and fund it seriously and extensively, and then was able to really measure over a more extensive period of time. So not a yeah, for example. It wasn’t just a project. We’re able to measure the benefits and get proper feedback and consultation, and therefore it stayed, and it was enduring. Whereas for us, we’ve never attempted an endeavor as big as that, and I don’t think it’s necessarily on this government or that government’s fault. It’s more that our attention and priorities and budget has been focusing on different areas. And our, I guess our strategic and political context is different to the US’s as well.

Ana Forsyth [00:27:43]:
For whatever reason, the choice hasn’t been made to try to establish the equivalent of a noise. So I can’t really say that it’s their fault for not doing it. It’s more about potentially the right business case, and the right amount of noise just hasn’t been made yet.

Karissa Breen [00:28:01]:
So in terms of practical next steps, what would you and I know you sort of end some of your thesis, but like what are some, like, practical things people can start to do now?

Ana Forsyth [00:28:10]:
Sure. So, see, it’s always tricky trying to prepare people today for tomorrow’s unknown challenges, and I think we need to think creatively, think outside the box, and stretch our views in as futuristic a way as reasonably and usefully possible. Things like initiatives for kids need to continue to come into existence, encouraging kids to learn to code, exposing kids to the types of careers that they can have, and earlier on when their electives in high school are still not made. That sort of work is really important because again, we’re not talking about clicking our fingers and having a huge cyber workforce tomorrow. We’re talking about how do we prepare our kids today to be cyber more cyber resilient than we are now in their future. So I guess whilst I said before that we have a bit of a scattergun approach, that’s not to say that every small thing doesn’t count or matter. So, you know, me going out to speak to kids in schools about cyber security is a very small thing. It was only 3 schools.

Ana Forsyth [00:29:19]:
It was 500 students. If, you know, every second student out of those has retained something about cyber security, and has given even a straight thought to potentially a career in cyber, or the importance of it, rather, in whatever career they end up in, I’m still very happy. So even something short like that. Right? Teachers, I’m coming back to that. That would probably be an area of focus for me. So if someone came to me asking me, well, I have all this money, then it would have to be like a lot of money, what would you put it in? I would definitely say teachers. So unfortunately, at the moment, teachers are often underrated and overlooked as a profession. They’re kind of taken for granted, but they’re the ones that inspire.

Ana Forsyth [00:30:05]:
They role model. They spark the interest. They kindle the ideas. They, you know, they mold the minds of the next generation. And there’s a lot on their shoulders. The time allocation, the curriculum changes, the pressure, the crowded curriculum, arguably. High expectations essentially, but not a lot of support for them to go on training. The amount of money that a teacher receives for training each year is would be laughable by most corporate standards and even even public service standards.

Ana Forsyth [00:30:35]:
And that’s very unfortunate. And you need to also take into account that they would need to come out of their schools and have relief teaching in. So there’s that extra cost as well every time. But that’s something that would be great as an area of focus that would make a big immediate difference. And then, of course, the career advisors and kind of telling them that cybersecurity exists because in a lot of cases, they don’t even birch that as options. And then, yeah, you know, something about that integration and interconnection in my flower petals that I talked about earlier. I was thinking about writing a piece around if a business has an interest in you and they have money or time to donate, how do they do it? Where do they go? Who do they give it to? Do they invest in parents? Do they invest in kids? Do they invest in teachers? Do they set up a partnership with a university? Do they set up scholarships? Do they volunteer their time to go and talk to schools? Do they bring university students into a SOC? How do they approach it? And I think there isn’t a lot out there on the types of options based on the amount of time and effort and money that an organization might have. So that’s something else that could be researched and undertaken sooner rather than later, and that doesn’t need, you know, a huge government initiative or anything like that.

Karissa Breen [00:31:57]:
So in terms of any final thoughts or closing comments, Anna, what would you like to leave our audience with today?

Ana Forsyth [00:32:03]:
Change the way you think and communicate about cybersecurity and change the way you engage. And actually, more importantly, potentially, a wise and anonymized industry interviewee, you know, when I did my interview, not everyone would wanted to be named, so I code named them, with randomly generated hacker names. And this particular one was Blazer, and they said if everybody has a bucket of water, then we won’t need a fire hose. And I think that’s really powerful because the need for a greater specialized cyber workforce would thus be, you know, compensated should the broader workforce better hold its own in the future.

Karissa Breen [00:32:51]:
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