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Women have been urged to take frontline roles in Ghana’s cybersecurity ecosystem as the CSA and Women in CyberSecurity West Africa opened the CyberSecure 360 Workshop in Accra, calling for stronger “human firewalls” to counter rising digital threats.

Day One of the three-day workshop brought together participants, including journalists, civil society groups, students and young professionals, but the spotlight was firmly on the role of women. Facilitators and regulators stressed that Ghana could not build a resilient digital environment without empowering more women with the skills to detect, prevent, and respond to cyberattacks.

Delivering the keynote, a deputy Director-General of the CSA, Dr Jamal Seidu Tonzua indicated that cybercriminals increasingly exploited human behaviour rather than technical weaknesses. He said women represented a critical but underutilised force in the national response, noting that “strengthening cyber hygiene and building human-centred skills was now as important as the technology itself.”

Throughout the day’s sessions, participants were taken through practical demonstrations on password safety, multi-factor authentication, safe browsing, digital footprints and social engineering. Trainers emphasised that women, who were deeply involved in community engagement, journalism, social work and digital entrepreneurship, were uniquely positioned to influence safer online behaviour in families, organisations and communities.

The programme also highlighted the need for women to enter technical cybersecurity careers, with the CSA outlining professional licensing pathways and stressing the importance of ethical practice and regulated service delivery under the Cybersecurity Act. Facilitators argued that increasing the number of trained women would not only close the gender gap but also create more diverse security teams capable of detecting threats others might miss.