European Cybersecurity Month: highlights of the 2019 Campaign

Every year, together with the participating Member States, ENISA organises the European Cybersecurity Month, the EU advocacy campaign on cybersecurity for the EU citizens.

2019 saw the deployment of the 7^th edition of the awareness raising campaign supported by the European Commission, Europol’s Cyber Crime Centre (EC3), European Schoolnet, and cybersecurity organisations from the participating Member States.

One of the objectives of the 2019 campaign is to ensure end-users and organisations are safe online. The general intention is to help EU citizens develop a basic understanding of the different types of online security and privacy issues. Other objectives of the Cybersecurity Month are:

• To promote cyber hygiene best practices,
• To highlight existing recommendations;
• To increase the participation of EU Member States and relevant stakeholders.

The ENISA - ECSM Deployment Report 2019 reveals the increased impact of the 2019 campaign and the positive outcomes of the activities performed.

Policy Contex

The European Cybersecurity Month is part of the actions designed to implement the provisions of the Cybersecurity Act (CSA), article 10, under Title II, chapter 2 on awareness raising and education.

The CSA mandates ENISA to organise regular outreach campaigns in cooperation with Member States, Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.

To that end, ENISA assists Member States in their efforts to raise cybersecurity awareness and promote cybersecurity education throughout the Union.

Objectives

The purpose of the report is to provide an overview of the activities organised in 2019.  The synthesis of the findings is based on evaluation and performance information gathered via two questionnaires and media monitoring data.

Content & Highlights

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

The 2019 campaign focused on delivery of live social media sessions and gamification sessions. Consequently, ENISA invested in developing digital content for online dissemination and proposed live virtual events and Q&A sessions on Twitter to engage with the public. Morevoer, a total of four social media quizzes were designed and posted every week.

The EU Member States coordinators agreed to organise the event around two themes; cyber hygiene and emerging technology, to allow for extended coverage of each theme and to facilitate the campaign’s measurement.

The 2019 campaign includes a significant increase in the following:

• Member States participation;
• Twitter activities with total of retweets that doubled compared to 2018;
• Total number of views for digital media coverage.

Although there were less conferences and workshops organised by Member States, they attracted nearly three times more visitors than the previous years.

The survey questionnaire sent to the Member States coordinators revealed how well the organisation of the ECSM was perceived. It also showed how the ECSM is considered to add substantial value to the national campaigns and is seen as a practical and positive opportunity to improve collaboration with other Member States.

Target Audience

The report is intended for those public and private organisations, which supported the ECSM or intend to do so in the future. IT security professionals and/or groups who attended events and conferences organised throughout Europe will also find it a useful source of information. In addition, the report targets EU and national policy makers who aim to improve the security awareness for citizens, professionals and IT end-users in general.

Further informations

ENISA - ECSM Deployment Report 2019

ECSM website

ECSM dedicated ENISA website's section