Human Factor and Training Needs in Cybersecurity

The Cyber Security in the Digital Age Panel at International Conference on Digital Trust, AI and the Future which was held in İstanbul Bilgi University on June 24, 2025 provided a fruitful and insightful one hour for all conference participants which very interesting talks with remarkable findings.

The first part of the panel was focused on the current challenges in cybersecurity sector, skills gap and job opportunities which will be needed in the future with our heartfelt thanks to our distinguished speakers from private sector with strong research backgrounds; Dr. Murat Apohan, Dr. Emrah Elmas and Oğuzhan Yıldız. Some findings emerged during the panel like cybersecurity should be secure by design principle, keeping the identity secure, fraud mechanisms, security issues in payment, the necessity for a dynamic risk assessment framework are priorities in developing and implementing systems. However, the “human factor” seemed to be the weakest link in cybersecurity. While technical controls are strongly needed, organisational aspects became more critical in reputation where it is more business driven and also AI driven where ethical issues arise.

The second part was focused on how to close the skill gap by education and training in cybersecurity to create new jobs in near future with our heartfelt thanks to our distinguished lecturer and academic; Aslı Birol and Dr. Serkan Gönen. The findings were much interesting as solution to above mentioned findings as challenges. The need for training but more with games and mindfulness approaches emerged, not only training technical people but also training employee in organizations. It was surprising to learn that there are 25000 gaps for cybersecurity professionals which was obtained during the 45 programs in Türkiye. The second bottleneck was stated as the slow update in the curriculums which must be designed modularly, thanks to Trust4Future Project for its modular innovative approach. The third bottleneck was on being sticky on overusing tools where this should be changed by critical thinking and fourth lack of ethics and law. Another interesting finding was that elementary and high school teachers should also be trained to train.

The result of this panel became our new motto: “tech is fast but education should be faster”

The panel was moderated by TAGES’s CEO Leyla Arsan, thanks to her for her committed moderation.

About Trust4Future Project:

Trust4Future, an EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative funded project, provides free training in Cryptography, Blockchain, Postquantum Cryptography, and Privacy-aware AI. Digital Trust forms a core part of our digital work. We aim to provide both practical and theoretical skills in core areas of digital trust. We aim to provide a cover of the foundation elements of digital trust and showcase how trusted applications and services can be built. It involves a partnership with Edinburgh Napier University, TAGES and Istanbul Blockchain Women. 

This programme is funded by the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).