Become A Cyber Hero, the first pan-European campaign organised by the GÉANT community, as part of the European Cyber Security Month 2020 activities, closed last month.
The objective of the campaign was to encourage end-users to arm themselves against digital threats and feel empowered to protect (themselves and) their organisation.
The initiative witnessed the active participation and fruitful collaboration of 19 NRENs whose diverse contributions also included original research papers from European academics.
The levels of engagement were unprecedented and surpassed all expectations and set objectives also in comparison with the outcomes and activities of Cyber Security Month 2019.
Here’s the campaign in numbers:
19 NRENs
40 articles
163 original tweets
113K impressions for Cyber Security Month tweets only from @GEANTnews
Cyber Security Month 2020 was the most visited page on CONNECT in October 2020.
The campaign, which focussed on four selected cyber security topics, was created and coordinated by a core cross-NREN team including communications and security experts from Belnet, SURF and GÉANT. The team curated, coordinated and produced content and planned its promotion through GÉANT’s communication channels throughout the month of October. The contemporary visuals and animations reinforced the campaign messages, engaged the public and contributed to making the initiative memorable and stand out.
“Interviewing and talking with international cyber experts was such an enriching experience for me. There is so much expertise in the field within the R&E community and I am pleased that we were able to share this knowledge during Cyber Security Month.” Davina Luyten, Belnet
The submitted content, covering social engineering, phishing, ransomware and password security themes, was varied, informative, engaging and educational. It ranged from technical subjects such as the effects of cyber attacks on the Android platform to the psychology behind social engineering illustrating human behaviour and reactions when faced by cyber threats and attacks.
“The objective of the GÉANT project GN4-3 Work Package 8 for Security is to reach the broader user community of users across Europe as widely as possible by the end of the project. This initiative is the proof of what the community can achieve by coming together. I am impressed and pleased by the results of such a joint collaborative effort.” Albert Hankel, SURF
“Collaboration with peers from NRENs across the community was impressive and very efficient. I look forward to the opportunity to co-create more exciting communication campaigns on other topics in the future.” Laetitia Lagneau, Belnet
The team is ready for more collaboration in the coming months and the general feeling is that Cyber Security 2021 cannot come soon enough, but rather than wishing the time away they will find new and exciting international projects to get their teeth into before October 2021.
Read more on the GÉANT Cyber Security Month 2020: https://connect.geant.org/csm2020