Last Updated on 22/11/2021 by Nidhi Khandelwal
Image courtesy; ASEAN Technology & Security Magazine
Singapore is a city-state in Southeast Asia. How do you keep a robber out of your house? By shutting the door, thieves are more likely to attempt a break-in at a different location.
Passwords, like locks, are used to protect digital content. Pick a good password, change it on a frequent basis, and never share it with anyone, much like toothbrushes.
These are some of the ways in which a new children’s book, which has been distributed to the libraries of all primary and special education schools in the area, aims to educate students about how to defend themselves from cyber-security dangers.
More than 200 schools, including 186 primary schools and 19 special education schools, have received complimentary copies of the book.
Cyber-security firm Fortinet announced the project on Monday (November 8), Singapore Cyber Day, as part of the Association of Information Security Professionals’ (AiSP) CyberFest series of cyber-security activities and initiatives this week.
Lacey the dog teaches her cat buddy Gabbi how to use the Internet safely in the book Cyber Safe: A Dog’s Guide To Internet Security.
It tackles themes such as what the Internet can be used for and not talking to strangers online in a comic-book manner.
It was authored by two mothers, Renee Tarun, Fortinet’s deputy chief information security officer, and Susan Burg, a National Board-certified teacher in the United States, and was released in March.
According to AiSP and Fortinet, it is critical for young people to receive effective cyber security guidance and support at a young age.
With so many Internet-connected devices being utilised for home-based learning as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, she believes there are opportunities for cyber criminals to undertake cyber assaults such as data theft and malware installation.
After “extremely serious events,” the Ministry of Education temporarily barred teachers from using video-conferencing platform Zoom to conduct lessons for home-based learning in April of last year, marking the start of the two-month circuit breaker here.
One incident involved hackers hijacking a live-streamed geography course and exposing vulgar images and making inappropriate comments to a class of Secondary 1 kids.
A parent’s handbook is also included in the book, detailing what parents should be wary of when their children are online, such as not reading e-mails from strangers.
Grace Orchard School was the first to receive the complimentary books last month. Students aged seven to eighteen who have been diagnosed with mild intellectual disabilities or mild autism spectrum disorders attend the special education school.
The Cyber Safe book, according to Ms Choy, is a fantastic resource for teachers to use in teaching kids about digital literacy and compliments the school’s other digital literacy materials.
