Chisinau, Moldova (May 4, 2015) – Whether you are a government agency, a commercial enterprise, or an individual, one thing is for certain: a dedicated cyber criminal has the potential to wreak havoc on the computer networks that bind the world together. With this sobering reality in mind, the Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC) is developing a Cyber Security Curriculum to help better defend against determined cyber adversaries.

The PfPC’s Emerging Security Challenges’ Working Group (ESC WG) is carrying out the Cyber Security Curriculum effort and the group met from 27-30 April 2015, at the Alexandru Cel Bun Academy in Chisinau. The Minister of Defense of the Republic of Moldova, Viorel Cibotaru, kicked off the event, demonstrating the strong partnership between NATO and non-NATO members that the PfPC fosters, and the need to collectively address today’s pressing security challenges.

As part of a multinational effort, the ESC WG brought together cyber experts from Armeia, Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Moldova, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States to draft the Cyber Security Curriculum. The curriculum is envisioned to support a variety of endeavors, to include government and private sector Critical Infrastructure Protection efforts, which depend on cyber security.

The curriculum focuses on four themes: 1) Understanding the typology of cyberspace, 2) Identifying cyber risk factors, 3) Ensuring the establishment of effective cyber policies, and 4) Building the resilience to prevent, protect, respond and recover from cyber incidents.

The Cyber Security Curriculum is the PfPC’s latest in a series of curricula developmentefforts, following a Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) as well as an Officer Development curriculum. Such curricula regularly become an integral part of partner nations’ defense education programs, as is the case in Ukraine and Georgia, where the respective Ministries of Defense are currently incorporating the NCO Development Curriculum developed by the PfPC.

In early 2016 the PfPC expects to complete the Cyber Security Curriculum and to subsequently make the curriculum available to any partner nation or institution interested in securing their networks against cyber threats.