News Item

European Cybersecurity Month: 265% Increase in Social Media Mentions

The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity releases the report on the European Cybersecurity Month campaign of 2020.

Published on April 15, 2021

The report published today shows how the European Cybersecurity Month campaign is getting wider attention with citizens engaging in online activities at a rate higher than ever before.

With social media engagement growing 265% of what it was in 2019, the campaign is getting momentum achieving its mission of reaching out to the European citizens to enhance education and awareness on cybersecurity. In addition, the ECSM campaign website was extensively consulted with a total of 117.072 visits in 2020.

ENISA closely coordinated this 8^th edition of the campaign with the following supporting and participating partners:

Cybersecurity organisations from the participating Member States and EFTA Countries;
European Commission;
Europol’s Cyber Crime Centre (EC3);
European Schoolnet;
Erasmus Student Network;
Internet Youth Governance Forum.

The participating Member States based their campaign on the following founding idea:

''Cybersecurity is a Shared Responsibility''

Member States decided to address both security and privacy topics. In doing so, they intended to help EU citizens develop a basic understanding of the different online security measures they can implement and provide them with key information on privacy issues. Such topics were addressed under two themes: digital skills and cyber scams.

The official motto of the 2020 campaign was therefore:

''Think Before U Click''

Member States coordinators agreed to support the implementation of the campaign’s activities. The broader objectives of the Cybersecurity Month are:

To promote cyber hygiene best practices;
To highlight existing recommendations;
To act as a “hub” for all participating Member States;
To increase the participation of EU Member States and relevant stakeholders.

The ENISA - ECSM Deployment Report 2020 reveals the increased impact of the 2020 campaign and the positive outcomes of the activities performed.

Content & Highlights

The report includes information on planning and execution as well as the evaluation of the campaign.

The 2020 campaign was fully conducted online due to the Covid-19 circumstances. It focused on the delivery of additional audio-visual material and of a rich social media events calendar. Consequently, ENISA invested in developing digital content for online dissemination and launched an improved campaign website to engage with the public.

The pages of the European Cybersecurity Month’s website were also considerably visited during the campaign. The new ECSM website had 117.072 views, which means 14.127 more views in 2020 than in 2019. This is the highest growth in comparison to growth between 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.

The EU Member States coordinators agreed to organise the event around two themes:

Digital skills - The purpose was to provide information on e-privacy matters such as personal data protection, privacy and cyberstalking;
Cyber scams - Addressing cyberscams allowed to share insights into the current and potential cyberthreats such as phishing, business email compromise and online shopping frauds.

The 2020 campaign saw a significant increase in the following:

Social media engagement: threefold increase in 2020 compared to 2019, from 14.842 to 43.900;
Social Media Reach: from 3,5 million in 2019 to 8,8 million in 2020;
Social Mentions: from 1.928 in 2019 to 7.046 in 2020; social media shares almost tripled;
Member States’ participation: an additional 6 Member States joined and 1 EFTA country actively engaged in last year’s campaign compared to the year before;
Twitter activities: retweets doubled compared to 2019;
Total number of post appearances for digital media assets rose from 2,7 million in 2019 to 9,8 million in 2020 (threefold increase).

The survey questionnaire sent to the Member States coordinators revealed how well the organisation of the ECSM was perceived. It also showed that the ECSM is considered to add substantial value to the national campaigns by 91% of the participating EU Member States. Overall, the campaign is seen as a practical and positive opportunity to improve cooperation with other Member States.

The 2021 Campaign

The ECSM 2021 will focus on two themes: ‘Be cyber secure at home’ and ‘First aid’, giving guidance to end-users on what to do when they fall victims of online fraud and identity theft.

Background

The European Cybersecurity Month is an EU awareness-raising campaign on cybersecurity intended for EU citizens. It is organised yearly by ENISA together with the European Commission and the participating Member States.

This awareness campaign is part of the actions designed to implement the provisions of the Cybersecurity Act (CSA) that mandate ENISA to organise regular outreach campaigns in cooperation with Member States, Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.

It is within this context that ENISA assists Member States in their efforts to raise cybersecurity awareness and promote cybersecurity education throughout the Union.