Specialization - 3 course series
This Specialization is designed for post-graduate students aiming to master AI applications in cybersecurity. Through three comprehensive courses, you will explore advanced techniques for detecting and mitigating various cyber threats. The curriculum covers essential topics such as AI-driven fraud prevention, malware analysis, and the implications of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). You will gain hands-on experience in identifying anomalies in network traffic, implementing reinforcement learning techniques for adaptive security measures, and evaluating AI model performance against real-world challenges. By completing this Specialization, you will develop a deep understanding of how to secure AI systems while addressing the complexities of adversarial attacks. This knowledge will prepare you to tackle emerging cybersecurity challenges, making you a valuable asset in the rapidly evolving field of digital security. With a focus on practical applications and industry-relevant skills, you will be well-equipped for a career in AI-driven cybersecurity.
Applied Learning Project
In the "AI for Cybersecurity" specialization, learners will apply AI techniques to develop practical cybersecurity tools. They will create both machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) models to detect IoT botnet activity in network traffic, emphasizing feature engineering for ML and optimizing raw data for DL. Additionally, participants will design a metamorphic malware detector using a Hidden Markov Model, analyzing opcode sequences to classify them as malware or legitimate software. Throughout these projects, learners will export models, test them on unseen data, and submit video demonstrations along with their code. This hands-on approach equips learners with skills in AI-driven threat detection and model implementation for real-world cybersecurity challenges.
This is a Coursera course, available through SADA. This course is delivered on Coursera and you complete it there. When you open it, it launches directly into Coursera in a new tab, already signed in for you — no separate account or login needed. It is fully connected and integrated with the SADA platform, and made available to you through SADA's partnership with Coursera. Your learning and completion happen on Coursera.
There are 3 modules in this course
This IBM course will teach you the critical skills needed to manage and investigate cybersecurity incidents. You will learn about key topics, including incident response frameworks (NIST and SANS), digital forensics methodologies, and best practices for handling digital evidence. Through hands-on labs and projects, you’ll gain practical experience in detecting, analyzing, and mitigating cybersecurity threats, as well as conducting forensic investigations using industry-standard tools.
By the end of the course, you will be equipped to implement incident response plans, collect and analyze digital evidence, and report findings to support cybersecurity efforts. This course is ideal for learners looking to strengthen their expertise in digital forensics and incident response, making it an essential component for those aiming to advance in the cybersecurity field.
Ceci est un cours Coursera, proposé via la SADA. Ce cours est dispensé sur Coursera et vous le suivez directement sur cette plateforme. Lorsque vous l'ouvrez, il se lance dans Coursera dans un nouvel onglet, où vous êtes déjà connecté, sans compte ni identifiant supplémentaires. Il est entièrement connecté et intégré à la plateforme SADA, et mis à votre disposition grâce au partenariat entre la SADA et Coursera. Votre apprentissage et votre achèvement se déroulent sur Coursera.
There are 2 modules in this course
Build the strategic side of cybersecurity — the one that dictates how organizations remain secure, compliant, and resilient. Cybersecurity Governance and Compliance explains the frameworks that give direction to security decisions, the policies that influence behavior, and the risk practices that keep operations up and running.
You’ll learn how to build governance structures, manage security policies, and evaluate risk through identification, analysis, tolerance, appetite, and treatment. BIA and vendor risk management help you understand business-critical dependencies and third-party exposure. You then move into the practical world of compliance: running vendor assessments, using compliance tools, managing privacy and data protection requirements, and strengthening awareness through penetration testing fundamentals, reconnaissance insights, and phishing reporting. If you want to influence security at a strategic level, this course becomes your roadmap. Enroll and advance into a governance-driven cybersecurity role.
This is a Coursera course, available through SADA. This course is delivered on Coursera and you complete it there. When you open it, it launches directly into Coursera in a new tab, already signed in for you — no separate account or login needed. It is fully connected and integrated with the SADA platform, and made available to you through SADA's partnership with Coursera. Your learning and completion happen on Coursera.
Specialization - 3 course series
Vigilance against cyberthreats and attacks becomes increasingly important year over year as we continue to accelerate the amount of sensitive information in digital, web-accessible formats. Do you want to arm yourself with the required knowledge to ensure protection for yourself or your organization? Take this cybersecurity Specialization to learn the basics!
This cybersecurity fundamentals program from IBM can help every individual with limited or no experience in IT or cybersecurity, whether you are a developer, a manager, an IT professional, or a digital consumer interested in learning about issues in the field and the measures you can take to ensure organizational security.
This specialization will equip learners with an understanding of the fundamental concepts, processes, tools, and strategies of cybersecurity, in combination with hands-on exercises and activities, to gain the experience necessary to implement security best practices and take informed decisions in case of a cyberattack.
Investigate topics like authorization, authentication, encryption, firewalls, detection, safety practices, and safe-guarding applications, data, and networks. Explore cybersecurity-related roles and career paths. Get started with your cybersecurity learning today!
Applied Learning Project
This Specialization emphasizes applied learning and includes a series of hands-on activities and projects. In these exercises, you’ll take the theory and skills you’ve gained and practice them with real-world scenarios.
You will explore networking ports and protocols and perform network troubleshooting. You will install Windows updates, anti-virus software, and use Windows Defender firewall. Additionally, manage browser privacy settings and configure a secure network. Regarding cybersecurity-related careers, you will search for job postings with the required skills and qualifications for specific roles and even start to develop your own resume and portfolio.
This is a Coursera course, available through SADA. This course is delivered on Coursera and you complete it there. When you open it, it launches directly into Coursera in a new tab, already signed in for you — no separate account or login needed. It is fully connected and integrated with the SADA platform, and made available to you through SADA's partnership with Coursera. Your learning and completion happen on Coursera.
ECOWAS, in collaboration with Smart Africa through the Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA) WARDIP, is organising a regional capacity-building initiative dedicated to women in cybersecurity, targeting female members of the ECOWAS Information Sharing and Analysis Centre and national CSIRTs. This programme will combine knowledge-sharing, technical training, and experiential learning through a study tour.
Women remain underrepresented in cybersecurity technical and leadership roles, despite being a vital talent pool for strengthening national and regional cyber resilience. Providing access to specialised training, mentorship, networking and exposure to good practices is critical to building a diverse and inclusive workforce.
Programme Dates
- Preparatory Webinar: 11-12 August 2026 (online, 2 hours/day)
- In-Person Training and Study Tour: 17-21 August 2026, Vilnius, Lithuania
Target Participants: Female members of ECOWAS national CSIRTs and the ECOWAS Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (ISAC)
Organised by: ECOWAS, in partnership with Smart Africa/SADA WARDIP and the World Bank
Your country may feel sovereign. But is it? Most governments rely on foreign-owned infrastructure for their most critical systems - communications, citizen data, national security. The question isn't whether your country has a digital strategy. It's whether you actually control what runs underneath it.
This opening webinar launches a practitioner programme for cyber authorities, regulators, and senior public sector executives who need to move from understanding digital sovereignty to actually implementing it.
What you will gain:
- A clear picture of where your country actually stands - not where its strategy says it stands
- Identification of your most critical hidden dependencies: infrastructure, jurisdiction, encryption keys
- Understanding of the two threats hitting governments simultaneously: vendor lock-in and the quantum decryption horizon
- A sovereignty gap map and a clear sense of where to act first
Who is this for? Policymakers, regulators, national cybersecurity authorities, and senior public sector executives seeking a clear, actionable path from digital sovereignty principles to operational control.
Delivered by: RealTyme, in partnership with the Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA)
Digital sovereignty is not an IT project. It is the new standard of national autonomy in the digital age.
Welcome to your course on Cybersecurity Economics for Emerging Markets!
This course is designed for government officials, policymakers, and digital-economy leaders across Africa who need to make the case for cybersecurity in budget rooms, not just server rooms. Most cybersecurity efforts fail not because the technology was weak, but because the spending was never framed as an economic decision: too much on rare, exotic threats, too little on the cheap fundamentals, and no way to show what a breach actually costs. An economic lens flips that around. It treats security as an investment with measurable returns, exposes why markets systematically underprovide it, and equips you to design proportionate policy that fits real emerging-market resource constraints.
The curriculum introduces why digital infrastructure creates economic exposure through core concepts including externalities and public goods, then maps how cyber threats are distributed across income groups and why upper-middle-income countries face disproportionate targeting. You will learn to quantify what incidents truly cost using the iceberg model of direct and hidden losses, diagnose the four market failures that suppress private security investment, and evaluate national responses through the five-step policy cycle, drawing on real cases including the Costa Rica 2022 ransomware incident.
By mastering these concepts, you will be equipped to quantify cyber risk in economic terms, identify the market failures that hold back investment, and design proportionate, evidence-based cybersecurity policy suited to your own national context.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Explain how digital infrastructure creates economic vulnerability, using concepts including externalities and public goods.
- Describe the regional distribution of cyber threats and why upper-middle-income countries face disproportionate exposure.
- Quantify the direct and indirect costs of cyber incidents using the iceberg model.
- Identify the four market failures that suppress private cybersecurity investment.
- Evaluate national cybersecurity policy proposals using the five-step policy cycle and economic reasoning from real-world cases.
Who is this course for?
This course is designed for government officials, policymakers, and digital-economy leaders across Africa. It is highly beneficial for individuals who are:
- Responsible for cybersecurity strategy, ICT regulation, or national budget decisions affecting digital infrastructure.
- Building the economic case for security investment or assessing the cost of cyber risk in their sector.
- Development finance professionals and advisers working on digital-economy resilience in emerging markets.
Bienvenue dans votre cours sur la gestion de la fraude en ligne à l'ère numérique !
La cybercriminalité a coûté à l'économie mondiale plus de 8 000 milliards USD en 2023, et l'Afrique ne fait pas exception : la fraude sur la monnaie mobile, les campagnes de hameçonnage et les attaques par rançongiciel progressent rapidement à mesure que l'adoption numérique s'accélère sur le continent. Ce cours outille les décideurs, les régulateurs et les responsables du secteur public avec les connaissances pratiques pour détecter, prévenir et répondre à la fraude en ligne dans leur propre contexte.
À travers quatre modules ciblés, vous explorerez le paysage de la fraude en ligne - ses techniques, ses conséquences et ses signaux d'alerte - puis vous aborderez les pratiques de cybersécurité et de protection des données, l'évaluation et la gestion structurées des risques, et les technologies de détection, stratégies d'éducation et cadres juridiques qui complètent une réponse globale à la fraude.
Résultats d'apprentissage
À la fin de ce cours, vous serez capable de :
- Identifier les principales catégories de fraude en ligne, les tactiques d'ingénierie sociale et les menaces de logiciels malveillants pertinentes dans le contexte numérique africain.
- Appliquer les meilleures pratiques de cybersécurité - mots de passe forts, authentification multifactorielle, chiffrement et communication sécurisée - pour réduire l'exposition à la fraude.
- Analyser et mettre en oeuvre un processus d'évaluation et de gestion des risques de fraude en cinq étapes au sein d'une institution publique ou d'une organisation financière.
- Évaluer les technologies de détection, les stratégies d'éducation et de sensibilisation, et les cadres juridiques et réglementaires nécessaires à une réponse nationale efficace contre la fraude.
À qui s'adresse ce cours ?
Ce cours est conçu pour les agents gouvernementaux, les régulateurs, le personnel TIC des ministères, les superviseurs du secteur financier et les gestionnaires du secteur public à travers l'Afrique. Il est particulièrement pertinent pour les personnes qui sont :
- Responsables de la politique de cybersécurité, de la protection des consommateurs ou de la supervision des services financiers numériques.
- En train de développer des cadres nationaux ou institutionnels de prévention de la fraude et des protocoles de réponse.
- Cherchant à aligner les pratiques de gestion de la fraude avec les instruments continentaux tels que la Convention de Malabo et la législation nationale sur la protection des données.
Bienvenue dans votre cours portant sur la Cybersécurité Continentale : Mise en Œuvre, Gestion et Développement des Capacités !
Ce cours approfondit la manière de mettre la cybersécurité en pratique à travers l'Afrique, en passant de la politique et des principes à la mise en œuvre, à la gestion quotidienne et à la capacité dont un pays a besoin pour la pérenniser. Il est essentiel pour les décideurs politiques et les professionnels africains chargés de rendre la cybersécurité opérationnelle dans un contexte de numérisation rapide et de menaces croissantes.
Le programme commence par le modèle de réseau Zero Trust (ne jamais faire confiance, toujours vérifier ; supposer la compromission ; accès au moindre privilège) et la façon de le réaliser par des pratiques de pare-feu, VPN, IDPS, cryptographie et réseau cloud. Vous apprendrez ensuite à gérer les incidents et les catastrophes à l'aide des CERT, CSIRT et SOC, de la planification de contingence, de la réponse et de la reprise après incident, et de la continuité d'activité et de la gestion de crise. Le cours aborde ensuite la sécurisation des infrastructures d'information critiques (CII), et se termine par le développement des capacités en cybersécurité et la protection des enfants en ligne.
En maîtrisant ces concepts, vous serez équipé(e) pour mettre en œuvre, gérer et pérenniser un programme de cybersécurité résilient adapté à votre propre contexte national.
Résultats d'apprentissage
À l'issue de ce cours, vous serez capable de :
- Appliquer les principes du réseau Zero Trust, ne jamais faire confiance et toujours vérifier, supposer la compromission, et l'accès au moindre privilège, pour renforcer la posture de sécurité d'une organisation.
- Concevoir des plans de réponse aux incidents, de contingence, de reprise après sinistre et de continuité d'activité adaptés à votre contexte national.
- Évaluer les stratégies pour identifier, classifier, protéger et gérer les infrastructures d'information critiques (CII).
- Recommander des politiques de développement des capacités en cybersécurité, y compris la formation de la main-d'œuvre et l'inclusion de genre, et de protection des enfants en ligne.
À qui s'adresse ce cours ?
Ce cours est spécifiquement conçu pour les décideurs politiques, les fonctionnaires, les régulateurs et les professionnels de la cybersécurité à travers les nations africaines. Il est très bénéfique pour les individus qui sont :
- Responsables de la mise en œuvre ou de la gestion de la stratégie, des opérations ou de la législation nationales de cybersécurité.
- Dirigent ou conseillent sur la réponse aux incidents, la protection des infrastructures d'information critiques ou les programmes de développement des capacités.
- Cherchant à aligner les cadres nationaux sur des instruments continentaux comme la Convention de Malabo et la Stratégie de cybersécurité de l'UA.
À propos du programme
SmartGirlLead donne aux jeunes femmes africaines entrepreneures, âgées de 21 à 28 ans, les moyens d'acquérir des compétences numériques et entrepreneuriales avancées. Grâce à des bourses, les participantes sélectionnées suivront un programme intensif de trois mois et recevront une formation spécialisée et une certification en intelligence artificielle, cybersécurité, cloud computing et analyse de données. Le programme est conçu pour améliorer l'employabilité des jeunes femmes en leur fournissant des compétences numériques avancées et des certifications adaptées aux besoins de l'économie numérique en constante évolution.
Critères d'éligibilité
- Jeune femme africaine âgée de 21 à 28 ans
- Intérêt pour la cybersécurité, le cloud computing AWS, l'IA ou l'analyse de données
- Résidente de l'un des pays éligibles : Tchad, Congo, Gabon, Gambie, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Malawi ou Afrique du Sud
Processus de pré-inscription
- Remplissez le formulaire de candidature
- Téléchargez votre CV
- Téléchargez une lettre de motivation
- Soumettez votre candidature
Les candidatures seront examinées et seules les candidates retenues seront notifiées.