This document proposes a youth-led awareness campaign to prevent cyber crimes. The campaign would work through three approaches: 1) Conducting forums and workshops to educate the public, especially youth, about cyber security risks; 2) Promoting cyber safety drills and proper firewall/antivirus usage; 3) Lobbying for tougher cyber crime laws through youth movements. By empowering youth to spread knowledge about this growing threat, the campaign aims to drastically reduce cyber attacks and their financial costs worldwide.

1. RALLYING YOUTH
AGAINST CYBER
CRIME
ENVISIONED DISASTER : CYBER
CRIMES
AREA : DISASTER
PREVENTION, PREPAREDNESS
H. Nilès Perera
University of Moratuwa
Sri Lanka

2. CYBER SECURITY
 The World has become highly dependent on Computer Networks
 Many businesses and personal lives are entwined with the Cyber
World
 A breach into a such a network would be catastrophic

3. WHY CYBER SECURITY?
Interception The society is Cyber Crimes Billions of e.g. – Identity
and misuse of largely are taking dollars are lost Theft, Credit
information ignorant to the place as we annually as a Card
can lead to a gravity of this speak result of this Fraud, Corpora
potential threat te Espionage
disaster in
what is
considered the
“information
age”

4. WHEN & HOW…???
A cyber security Most computer Awareness A recent survey
disaster can networks are regarding the conducted in Sri
break out any inadequately gravity of the Lanka revealed
that a majority of
second protected issue is employees would
minimum willingly give away
their login
information
This means the threat of a disaster exists from both within and outside of the
network

5. OVERCOMING CYBER CRIMES
 A three pronged strategy focussing on Prevention &
Preparedness is proposed
Tougher
Laws
Server
Lockdown
Create
Awareness

6. HOW WOULD IT WORK?
The enormity of the catastrophe that can be caused by forging,
replacing, hacking and other illegal interceptions of data using
cyber crimes are not widely known by the public
By shedding light to the issue and creating awareness among the
public prevention and preparedness can be achieved
Conduct Promote Cyber Lobby for legal
Forums, Discussions Safety Drills and changes using broad
& Workshops to get usage of proper youth movements
the message across Firewalls, Anti-Virus
and other software

7. IS IT RELEVANT & EFFECTIVE?
Youth
Effective change
can be instilled by Knowledge &
a youth led Awareness gives
awareness Youth is the Awarenes
Power Change Catalyst of s
campaign
because….. the 21st century
e.g. – using social
media, blogs
Success

8. HOW IS IT INNOVATIVE?
There are many
awareness programmes
initiated across the world
to promote Cyber Security.
But a Youth lead programme will catalyse a
big change in a world where the young
generation has become the major user of the
rapidly galloping technological advancements.
Many countries have already introduced laws (e.g. - Sri Lanka enacted the
Computer Crimes Act No.24 in 2007) to mitigate this disaster, however very
few of these were drafted after careful consideration of the future after
taking inputs from the youth of the respective nations.

9. EXPECTED RESULTS…
Greater
Awareness of
the
Implement seriousness of
tougher laws Creating a
proactive platform Cyber Crimes
and regulations across the
to share
experiences and world
knowledge on
Cyber Security
breaches
Leading to a drastic reduction of
reported incidents & financial
costs of Cyber Security
breaches

10. WHY WILL IT WORK?
• Youth have always been the • Cyber Crime is a serious disaster
forefront of change, the recent that is waiting to happen, and the
“Arab Spring” illustrates what public is ignorant about it. Once
youth can achieve if they are in it the gravity of this disaster, which
together can liquidate assets, alter
records, delete or leak valuable
information and affect anyone who
deals with the cyber world in a
split second hits the general public
they are bound to react. This is a
disaster of grand scale that
everyone regardless of
age, colour, nationality, religion or
region is prone to face in the near
future and will bring the world to a
standstill.