CSEAN announces cyber security awareness competition

In pursuit of its grassroots cyber security awareness campaign, Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN) is seeking creative and innovative cyber security awareness videos and posters with local content to be used for National Cyber Security Awareness Campaigns.

According to a release signed by President, Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN), Mr. Remi Afon and made available to The Daily Times, stated that “a National Cyber Security Awareness Video and Poster Competition will commence from July 10th to September 1st 2017. Winners of the competition will be announced during October 2017 Cyber Security Awareness Month at CSEAN’s National Cyber Security Awareness Symposium slated for Lagos. Selection of the best videos and posters will be used for CSEAN’s national cyber security awareness campaign to compliment already existing Stop Think Connect materials.

“The Cyber Security Awareness Video Category must be original work and maximum of 60 seconds with local content and must focus on either cyber bullying or how to stay safe using social media (highlighting the risks of social media) using hash tag #CyberAwareNG. For the Poster Category, the poster must be A4 size original work and must have local content with focus on either phishing (malware, credential harvesting etc) or need for strong password and two factor authentication using hash tag #CyberAwareNG. Star Prizes include Brand New Laptop, Android Tablets and Smartphones.”

Afon said that the main reason why security fails is the human factor, since there is no patch for human stupidity, adding that CSEAN intends to use social media to increase cyber security awareness in Nigeria.

“It has been observed that there is a sharp increase in cyber bullying in Nigeria which is worrisome, the competition among other things intends to raise awareness on how deal with cyber bullies.

The global scale of the recent wannacry and petya ransomware attacks showed the astonishing speed at which even the most unsophisticated of attacks can spread around the world. The global ransomware damage costs are predicted to exceed $5 billion in 2017. That’s up from $325 million in 2015—a 15 times increase in two years, and expected to worsen. Report shows that majority of the successful ransomware attacks are as a result of human factors. It has now become imperative for government and organisations to include cyber security awareness training as part of their annual training programme,” he concluded.

CSEAN is a non-profit organisation made up of Information security professionals, centred on a collective purpose and vision of championing the cause and awareness of cyber security in Nigeria, acting as an agent of change to address Cyber Crime phenomena through engaging intellectual minds, business and political leaders.