Achieving Resilience at ASEAN Japans Cybersecurity Capacity Building Centre

Realizing the challenges in building a sufficient competent cybersecurity workforce, the ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Capacity Building Centre (AJCCBC) was established with the ambition to enhance the capacity of a cybersecurity workforce within the Southeast Asia region in the hope of creating a more vigorous future cyber landscape. AJCCBC had been providing in-person hands-on cybersecurity training sessions, focusing mainly on incident response, digital forensics and malware analysis for many years.

The AJCCBC management team observed participants and determined that the most practical learning method that currently exists is instructor-led in-person training, where the trainees are able to interact with the instructors and one another.

However, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, it affected the way humans live and learn. In spite of unforeseen operational challenges that the pandemic created, AJCCBC still needed to carry on its mission, but it found it needed increase its resilience and adaptability. During the past two years of the pandemic’s global disruption, AJCCBC deployed several procedures to reduce the pandemic’s effects on operations:

• Identifying—Initially, AJCCBC paused to analyze how the pandemic had affected operations. Clearly, the provision of in-person activities was affected the most. Unfortunately, halting operations came with a price in operational and financial terms, so a solution was needed as quickly as possible.
• Responding—to the problems needed to be identified immediately and effective solutions proposed quickly. At the time, the best alternative was to migrate the training from a face-to-face format to online courses. Similar to other project initiatives that included contingency considerations, AJCCBC had already planned business continuity operations for the entire project duration as well as budget to address diverse situational needs. As a result, they just needed to revise the operation plan for the rest of the project by proposing an extension and re-allocation of the provided budget without increasing the cost. The content was also modified to increase suitability with the new online format. To address possible shortcomings of this change, AJCCBC decided that it would be too risky to provide participants with the modified training content straight away and provided a trial voluntary participation (preview training). Moreover, they added a new way to provide an effective remote learning experience with a new online learning management system. They used the available content previously developed and transformed it into micro-learning lessons where participants could conveniently learn from anywhere and at any time without having to physically travel and risk exposure to COVID-19.
• Evaluation—As the situation evolved over months and years, the process did not stop there. AJCCBC continued to monitor the pandemic situation closely and assess the effectiveness of the online virtual training and micro-learning provision through a cybersecurity workforce survey where participants had an opportunity to share their feedback and opinions a year after the switch to the online training format. The survey determined that, compared to in-personal training before the COVID-19 pandemic and despite the limitations of online instructor-led training, participants still learned effectively and enjoyed the experience provided by AJCCBC.

AJCCBC’s demonstration of resilience and accomplishment did not occur overnight. They relied on being alert to any unforeseen challenges to readily deploy alternative solutions to maintain operational continuity. Furthermore, they were supported by their alliances, which include ASEAN member states, and the government of Japan, which provided the funding and the ASEAN secretariat, in overcoming such a demanding pandemic situation. The case study on resilience can be useful to others who continue to develop and provide resilient cybersecurity capacity building efforts in the future.

Editor’s note: For further insights on this topic, read the authors’ recent Journal article, “ASEAN’s Resilience in Capacity Building,” ISACA Journal, volume 4 2022.

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