C3. Not a War, a Cyberwarfare
1. Description of the LTT Mobility – Short-term joint staff training events
The LTT session in Romania was structured in a 5 days program dedicated to the training of the participating teachers involved in the mobility. This time, the discussions focused on cybersecurity criminals versus cybersecurity specialists, cyberwarfare, protecting personal data (GDPR), cybersecurity law. Educators must be the first category of recipients of this specific information in order to transmit to their students’ basic concepts and ideas regarding the cybersecurity world. In order to be able to create a successful awareness campaign among students, teachers of different specialties, ICT included attended this program. Training sessions were organized during the mobility and included the following topics:
Day 1- Presentation of the cyberwarfare phenomenon. Examples and practical details.
Day 2- The figure of the cybersecurity criminals. Practical and psychological features and implications.
Day 3- The art of ensuring integrity: workshop about types of data integrity controls, digital signatures, certificates, database integrity enforcement.
Day 4- Cyber-bullying: mitigation (techniques, best practices). Talks with the psychologist of the school or other relevant figures from the area/ NGO’s etcetera.
Day 5- GDPR – the protection of personal data. Meetings with GDPR specialist to present best practices from their companies or universities.
After attending this meeting, the participants know now basic concepts about cyberwarfare, cybersecurity criminals. data integrity and data protection and how to link them to their activity with students, they are aware of the importance of following certain steps when working with students on the online platforms and different websites during and after the lessons inside the school. In this way they were able to contribute to a wider presentation of the mitigation phase of cyberbullying. They shared their personal experiences and good practices in order to improve similar situations in their school. The meeting had the following: 1 presentation of the cybersecurity law, 1 handbook on mitigation, focusing on techniques, psychological approaches and questionnaires, 1 guidelines about GDPR. The training session was integrated within the school’s normal activities by involving students from the school during the workshops and frontal discussions and presentations. In spite of the pandemics, we managed to organize the mobility therefore the activity was carried out physically in September-October 2021.
2. Benefits of the meeting
By participating in the workshops organized during the mobility, the involved participants they were even more aware of all threats implied by a cyberwarfare and by the general personal data protections policies especially in direct contact with programs provided by big players like Google and Facebook. For example, the experts at Google created one of the first and most powerful domains within the broader cyber world of the Internet and billions of people use Google to search the web every day. Furthermore, Google developed Android, the operating system installed on over 80% of all mobile devices connected to the Internet. Each device requires users to create Google accounts that can save bookmarks and account information, store search results, and even locate the device. Facebook is another powerful domain. The experts at Facebook recognized that people create personal accounts every day to communicate with family and friends. In doing so, you are volunteering a great deal of personal data. These Facebook experts built a massive data domain to enable people to connect in ways that were unimaginable in the past. Facebook affects millions of lives on a daily basis and empowers companies and organizations to communicate with people in a more personal and focused manner. This data often includes users’ backgrounds, discussions, likes, locations, travels, interests, friends and family members, professions, hobbies, and work and personal schedules. Experts create great value for organizations interested in using this data to better understand and communicate with their customers and employees. The data collected within the Internet is considerably more than just the data that the users contribute voluntarily. Cyber domains continue to grow, enabling the experts and their employers to collect many other forms of data. Cyber experts now have the technology to track worldwide weather trends, monitor the oceans, as well as the movement and behavior of people, animals and objects in real time.
By knowing all this information, teachers from all partners school were able to pass it on to their students and make also them aware of the threats and liabilities of using not only Facebook and Google, but also other applications developed for youngsters such as Instagram, Tik Tok, Discord, Snapchat etcetera.
Results
Participants:
Outcomes:
- 1 presentation of the cybersecurity law: Romania (PDFs)
- 1 handbook on mitigation, focusing on techniques, psychological approaches and questionnaires: Example of Procedure concerning Prevention and Figthing Violence, Bullying, Cyberbullying in School (PDF); Cyberbullying: Stats and facts in Greece and in our school. Howe do we tackle it? (PDF)
- 1 guidelines about GDPR: Cyber-warfare, GDPR, and Cyberbullying in Greece and in Alikianos General High School. A short Briefing (PDF); Privacy & Data Protection for Education. Two Basic Issues (PDF)
Extra:
- Cyber Criminals and Cyber Attacks. Types and Features (PDF)
- About Cyberbullying, presentation by Dante Alighieri High School students (PDF)
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