IT education should include security

12:41 29th October 2008

IT security education should be major part of school computing courses with funding allocated to ensure users learn how to surf online safely, security experts have claimed.

Addressing delegates at the RSA Conference Europe show, the security vendor VeriSign revealed that financial institutions and online organisations are taking positive steps to improve the security education of their customers, Computing.co.uk has reported.

In addition, e-crime senior manager at Lloyds TSB, Mark Stanhope, identified that millions of pounds are spent on IT, but only a fraction is allocated to information security.

"There also needs to be an international campaign to educate users – we get government campaigns around seatbelt safety and smoking but not online security," suggested Ken Silva, chief technology officer at VeriSign.

Last week, the government launched the first stage of its £300 million IT learning scheme, with 20,000 children in Suffolk and Oldham receiving free computers and internet access.