Think Before You Click. Post. Type. Lessons learned from our University Cyber Secuity Awareness Campaign

This article discusses the lessons learned after implementing a successful university-wide cyber security campaign. The Cyber Security Awareness Committee (CyberSAC), a group comprised of diverse units across campus, collaborated together on resources, talent, people, equipment, technology, and assessment practices to meet strategic goals for cyber safety and education. The project involves assessing student learning and behavior changes after participating in a Cyber Security Password Awareness event that was run as a year-long campaign targeting undergraduate students. The results have implications for planning and implementing university-wide initiatives in the field of cyber security, and more broadly, higher education at large

Asegúrate: an intervention program against cyberbullying based on teachers' commitment and on design of its instructional materials

This article presents the impact on cyberbullying of the Asegúrate program. This educational program is based on the theory of normative social behavior, self-regulation skills,and the beliefs held by adolescents and consists in a whole package of strategies and resources to help teachers to include in the ordinary curricula. The evaluation of Asegúrate was carried out with a sample of 4779 students (48.9% girls) in 5th and 6th grade in primary education and compulsory secondary education (M = 12.76; SD = 1.67) through a quasi-experimental methodology, with two measures over time. The instrument used was the European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire. The results show that the involvement in cyberbullying as cyber-victim,cyber-aggressor, and cyber-bully-victim increase without intervention, whereas it diminishes when intervention is carried out by the teachers who have received specific training and have used the didactic Asegúrate package. Additionally, the impact of the intervention on the different types of behaviors was analyzed, and the results show that Asegúrate is more effective with some forms than with others. Consequently, the Asegúrate program is effective for decreasing the prevalence of cyberbullying, but some modifications need to be made to impact on all the different forms it can take.Gobierno de España PSI2017-86723-RGobierno de España PSI2016-74871-

Comparing Three Countries’ Higher Education Students’ Cyber Related Perceptions and Behaviours during COVID-19

In 2020, a global pandemic led to lockdowns, and subsequent social and business restrictions. These required overnight implementation of emergency measures to permit continued functioning of vital industries. Digital technologies and platforms made this switch feasible, but it also introduced several cyber related vulnerabilities, which students might not have known how to mitigate. For this study, the Global Cyber Security Index and the Cyber Risk literacy and education index were used to provide a cyber security context for each country. This research project—an international, cross-university, comparative, quantitative project—aimed to explore the risk attitudes and concerns, as well as protective behaviours adopted by, students at a South African, a Welsh and a Hungarian University, during the pandemic. This study’s findings align with the relative rankings of the Oliver Wyman Risk Literacy and Education Index for the countries in which the universities reside. This study revealed significant differences between the student behaviours of students within these universities. The most important differences were identified between students’ risk attitudes and concerns. It was also discovered that South African students reported having changed their protective online behaviours to the greatest extent, since the pandemic commenced. Recommendations are made suggesting that cyber security training and education, as well as improving the digital trust and confidence in digital platforms, are critical

How To Succeed in Cyberspace

Cyberspace is a very real man-made environment. Like any physical realm, while it offers potential for progress and benefits, it also offers opportunities for misconduct, and cyber criminals and cyber terrorists are continually searching out weaknesses in the defences that have been erected against them. There is one weakness that is pervasive across society: our individual lack of awareness, and of how to protect ourselves and our organisations against cyber attack. This paper reports on an EU funded project called SUCCEED (Shaping University Curricula to Critical Infrastructure Employer Needs) which seeks to reduce that vulnerability through education; specifically, we want to advise Higher Education Institutions of measures by which curricula can be augmented to ensure that all graduates have an appropriate level of cyber savvy. The paper’s structure reflects the project’s straightforward approach: first we identified what is needed in terms of knowledge and understanding of how to be protected in cyberspace; second we examined current provision (primarily to identify gaps, but also to refer to best-practice); third we will outline recommendations based on our findings from the first and second phases; and fourth we will have these recommendations validated by relevant stakeholders (including representatives from industry, government organisations and academia) in order to distil our conclusions, which will be disseminated and exploited further as final contributions of the project. This paper presents current progress of the SUCCEED project, in particular the results and findings obtained from the first two phases of the project. This is a relatively modest project, and will not claim to provide a definitive solution. However, we believe it can provide an important first step towards an enrichment of curricula that will better prepare graduates to cope with the dangers and risks from terrorists and cyber criminals in the digital future they will all participate in. Only thus can they SUCCEED in cyberspace, by staying safe and secure in the digital realm – through education

Cyberbullying Incidents Among African American Female Middle School Students

Recent research has shown an increase in cyber bullying acts against middle and high school students. The National Center of Education Statistics (2010) reported that cyberbullying incidents increased 73% between the years of 2007 and 2009. In 2011, 75% of cyberbullying victims were adolescents (National Center of Education Statistics, 2013). Using data collected from the Pew Research and American Life Project, the study examined the prevalence of cyber bullying acts against African American female adolescents compared to Caucasian male and female adolescents and African American male adolescents. Additionally, the study reported the cyber bullying incident that occurred most frequently as either directly using texting or indirectly using social media websites. Past research studies have shown a prevalence of cyber bullying acts against Caucasian females. The participants in this study were 737 adolescents 12-17 years old. The results suggested that a prevalence of cyber bullying acts against African American female students occurred at a significantly lower rate than Caucasian female and male students but a significantly higher rate than African American male students and Hispanic male and female students. Additionally, indirect cyberbullying incidents occurred significantly more frequently than direct cyberbullying incidents

Cyber Hygiene Maturity Assessment Framework for Smart Grid Scenarios

Cyber hygiene is a relatively new paradigm premised on the idea that organizations and stakeholders are able to achieve additional robustness and overall cybersecurity strength by implementing and following sound security practices. It is a preventive approach entailing high organizational culture and education for information cybersecurity to enhance resilience and protect sensitive data. In an attempt to achieve high resilience of Smart Grids against negative impacts caused by different types of common, predictable but also uncommon, unexpected, and uncertain threats and keep entities safe, the Secure and PrivatE smArt gRid (SPEAR) Horizon 2020 project has created an organization-wide cyber hygiene policy and developed a Cyber Hygiene Maturity assessment Framework (CHMF). This article presents the assessment framework for evaluating Cyber Hygiene Level (CHL) in relation to the Smart Grids. Complementary to the SPEAR Cyber Hygiene Maturity Model (CHMM), we propose a self-assessment methodology based on a questionnaire for Smart Grid cyber hygiene practices evaluation. The result of the assessment can be used as a cyber-health check to define countermeasures and to reapprove cyber hygiene rules and security standards and specifications adopted by the Smart Grid operator organization. The proposed methodology is one example of a resilient approach to cybersecurity. It can be applied for the assessment of the CHL of Smart Grids operating organizations with respect to a number of recommended good practices in cyber hygiene.This project has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 787011 (SPEAR

The use of project management activities for the prevention and to counter the ideology of cyber extremism among young people in high school

This article describes the application of project management during implementation of measures for the prevention and countering the ideology of cyberactivism among youth in high school. Discusses the benefits of project management in education. Describe the activities in the framework of the project "Week of cyber extremism"В статье описывается применение проектного менеджмента при проведении мероприятий по профилактике и противодействию идеологии киберэкстремизма среди молодежи в вузе. Рассматриваются преимущества проектного менеджмента в образовании. Описываются мероприятия в рамках проекта «Неделя киберэкстремизма