41 THE IMPORTANCE OF CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS FOR CHILDREN Yuliana Universitas Udayana, Indonesia E-mail: yuliana@unud.ac.id Submitted: Feb 10, 2022; Reviewed: Jun 29, 2022; Accepted: Jun 30, 2022 Article Info Abstract Keywords: Awareness, Children, Cybersecurity. DOI: 10.25041/lajil.v4i1.2526 Online school during the COVID-19 pandemic makes the children prone to cyberattacks and malware. Therefore, cybersecurity awareness among children is critical. Online games and stories caused children to neglect their studying time. Therefore, this paper aims to describe the importance of cybersecurity awareness among children. Analyses were performed by using a literature review. Inclusion criteria are review and research articles. Inclusion criteria are review and research articles that were read twice to reduce the bias, then were summarized and narrated descriptively. Results revealed that cybersecurity awareness could be increased by digital literacy training. Children should be taught how to avoid risky behavior online. The cybersecurity awareness program is suitable for children to avoid phishing, pornography, cyberbullying, identity theft, and breaking of privacy. Children must be taught how to keep their passwords safe and private. They also need to be more cautious when playing online games. In conclusion, digital literacy and cybersecurity programs can be taught to children. These programs are suitable for raising cybersecurity among children. A. Introduction All users are prone to various security risks when they spend significant time online. There are many different terms are used to address these risks that internet users get exposed to in their everyday lives. Some terms are used interchangeably such as cybersecurity, online safety, and internet security. Cybersecurity is widely used because it has many perspectives. However, there is no clear operational definition among scholars.1 Cybersecurity is defined as the collection of policies and concepts about guidelines, risk management, and technologies to protect the cyber environment and users’ assets. Cybersecurity ensures the maintenance of the 1 Farzana Quayyum, Daniela S Cruzes, and Letizia Jaccheri, “Cybersecurity Awareness for Children: A Systematic Literature Review,” International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 30, no. 1 (2021): 1–25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2021.100343. Volume 4 Issue 1, January-June 2022: pp. 41-48. Department of International Law, Faculty of Law, Universitas Lampung, Bandar Lampung, Indonesia. p-ISSN: 1978-5186 E-ISSN: 2723-2603 http://jurnal.fh.unila.ac.id/index.php/lajil mailto:yuliana@unud.ac.id The importance of cybersecurity awareness for children Yuliana 42 security properties of the organization and users. The users include children. Online school during the COVID-19 pandemic makes the children prone to cyberattacks and cyber malware. They need to raise their awareness of cybersecurity. Online games and stories caused children to neglect their studying time.2 The increasing availability of the internet for children during online school raises concerns among parents and society. Children are prone to online risks. Therefore, it is important to develop a cybersecurity program awareness to increase the students’ awareness. Some important things to be taken into account are cybersecurity risks for children, approaches, theories, and solutions in raising cybersecurity awareness.3 A substantial amount of time is spent online for educational and entertainment purposes. The internet gives many opportunities. Therefore, security awareness should be taught to the children. Children are difficult to discern between the opportunities and risks of digital systems. However, those online activities create threats to the children’s privacy and safety. The danger of the risks is not realized until it is very late. Online abuses could happen. 4 Critical aspects that need to be evaluated and concerned about are the concern, solutions, recommendations, and approaches in raising cybersecurity among children. Therefore, this paper aims to describe the importance and the way to raise cybersecurity awareness for children. This research is a narrative literature review. Articles were taken from the Science Direct and Google Scholar databases. Inclusion criteria are review and research articles. Exclusion criteria are not peer-reviewed articles and unavailable full-text articles. Articles were read twice to reduce the bias. The selected articles were summarized and narrated descriptively. B. Discussion 1. The Hazard Of Internet Use Among Children The use of the internet gives a lot of comfort for people. Online working, studying, or accessing entertainment are possible by using the internet. The use of the internet can increase the social well-being of children. However, there are some threats such as cyberbullying, identity theft, pornography, etc. Children should be taught how to avoid risky behavior online. Cybersecurity awareness can be increased by digital literacy training. The cybersecurity awareness program is good to be given to children in avoiding phishing, pornography, cyberbullying, identity theft, and breaking to privacy. Children must be taught how to keep their passwords safe and private. They also need to be more cautious when playing online games. 5 2. The importance of cybersecurity awareness Educating the children about online dangers is very essential. Many countries have implemented special programs to raise awareness. Children need to be educated about how to behave safely online. In African countries, there is a lack of this program implementation. It was developed an initiative movement to raise awareness of a cyber-safety culture for children. 6 A study about children from 12 to 19 years old as internet users in Malaysia revealed that this group has the highest number of internet users. They often overshare information. Everything on the internet is perceived as the truth. Children have less knowledge in protecting sensitive information. This should be the concern because personal data should be protected. 2 Quayyum, Cruzes, and Jaccheri. 3 Quayyum, Cruzes, and Jaccheri. 4 Quayyum, Cruzes, and Jaccheri. 5 Martina J Zucule De Barros and Horst Lazarek, “A Cyber Safety Model for Schools in Mozambique,” in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy (ICISSP 2018), 2018, 251–58, https://doi.org/10.5220/0006573802510258. 6 Barros and Lazarek. Lampung Journal of Iternational Law (LaJIL) P-ISSN 2656-6532 Volume .. Number .., Month… Year E-ISSN: 2723-2603 43 Some challenges in increasing security awareness are understanding and awareness. When the messages are understood, they are more likely to be accepted. 7 Cybersecurity awareness is related to the methodology to educate the users to be aware of cyber threats and data stealing. The degree of users’ understanding is related to the importance of information security. There are two main purposes of cybersecurity awareness, namely alerting and understanding the risks. Human-related vulnerability can happen at personal and organizational levels. 8 3. Solution for increasing awareness security program in education program The popularity of tablets and smartphones makes children undergo a rapid shift of Game-Based Learning (GBL). This shift is caused by mobility and a built-in sensor. Therefore, blended and mobile learning is ubiquitous. There are six important dimensional frameworks of this type of learning as follows: 9 a. Spatio-temporal b. Collaboration/Social c. Pedagogy d. Personalization e. Data security & privacy f. Session The educational program is developed based on the solutions. Both technological aspects and pedagogical qualities should be maintained during the online learning10 Cybersecurity awareness has been studied in recent years. Children are included in the subject of the study. Based on the World Health Organization definition, children are anyone under 18 years. Password practices are the concerns of cybersecurity in children. A simple password is easy to be hacked. 11 Children are an essential part of the community because they have a bright and long future. The main concern is the safety of the children. Using smartphones and computers has some risks for children. However, we cannot limit the children’s in accessing the material online, but we can supervise them on how to surf online safely. Therefore, the Ministry of Education of the Union of Arab Emirates implemented a cybersecurity awareness program. This program was given to students from 8 to 10 years old. It was revealed that this program is effective to reduce the online risks for children. The students learn how to behave online safely. 12 The Ministry of Education in the Union of Arab Emirates focused on training and education programs for the students in internet best practices. The goal is to increase cybersecurity and cyber awareness. The grade 4 students (8-10 years old) were given the internet safety topic as the major subject of the Design and Technology program. It was considered as a co mpulsory 7 Noor Hayani Abd Rahim, “Assessment of Cybersecurity Awareness Program on Personal Data Protection among Youngster in Malaysia” (2017). 8 Filippos Giannakas et al., “Security Education and Awareness for K-6 Going Mobile,” International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technology 10, no. 2 (2016): 41–48. 9 Filippos Giannakas, Georgios Kambourakis, and Andreas Papasalouros, “A Critical Review of 13 Years of Mobile Game-Based Learning,” Educational Technology Research and Development 2, no. 1 (2017): 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-017-9552-z. 10 Giannakas et al., “Security Education and Awareness for K-6 Going Mobile.” 11 Suzanne Prior and Karen Renaud, “Age-Appropriate Password ‘Best Practice’ Ontologies for Early Educators and Parents,” International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 2020, 100169, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2020.100169. 12 Arwa A Al Shamsi, “Effectiveness of Cyber Security Awareness Program for Young Children : A Case Study in UAE,” International Journal of Information Technology and Language Studies (IJITLS) 3, no. 2 (2019): 8–29, https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28488.14083. The importance of cybersecurity awareness for children Yuliana 44 module. This program was done for three months. The materials comprised of the internet usages, online dangers, the ways to protect themselves online, and solutions to respond to the online risks properly. At the end of the program, children should be able to answer the following questions such as depicted in Figure 1 below. The special program that needs to be concerned, including the theme and constructs, is shown in Figures 2 and 3.13 Figure 1. The questions for children’s assessment after finishing the cybersecurity awareness program14 13 Shamsi. 14 Shamsi. Lampung Journal of Iternational Law (LaJIL) P-ISSN 2656-6532 Volume .. Number .., Month… Year E-ISSN: 2723-2603 45 Figure 2. The main construct and theme of cybersecurity awareness program15 Figure 3. The content of the cybersecurity awareness program16 Smartphones usage has been widely used across the countries, including South African society. However, there is no special curriculum regarding the cyber security in schools. The university teaches some cyber security principles. However, it is only applied to students who are taking computing-related courses. The students taking the computing courses are only small 15 Shamsi. 16 Shamsi. The importance of cybersecurity awareness for children Yuliana 46 parts of the community. Therefore, cybersecurity should be taught to children. There is an essential principle in giving the requisite skills in cyber security. This principle should be started as early as possible, especially in primary school. It can be embedded into the national curriculum. Gender imbalance must be stopped in the cyber security awareness programs. Cybersecurity awareness should be seen as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic, especially in the technology era. 17 Special curricula for an early age are implemented in the United Kingdom. The program includes Information and Communications Technology as a foundational skill for early age students. This is essential to make sure that the children understand online safety behavior, including how to evaluate fake news or hoaxes. There are two important elements of cyber security education. Those elements are awareness and special steps in taking precautions. 18 The important steps of maintaining cybersecurity are shown in Figure 4. Special infrastructure security and data protection should be provided.19 Figure 4. Security triangle of cybersecurity20 17 Isabella M Venter et al., “Cyber Security Education Is as Essential as ‘the Three R’s,’” Heliyon 5, no. August (2019): 1–7, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02855. 18 Venter et al. 19 Yuchong Li and Qinghui Liu, “A Comprehensive Review Study of Cyber-Attacks and Cyber Security ; Emerging Trends and Recent Developments,” Energy Reports, no. Article in Press (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2021.08.126. 20 Li and Liu. Lampung Journal of Iternational Law (LaJIL) P-ISSN 2656-6532 Volume .. Number .., Month… Year E-ISSN: 2723-2603 47 C. Conclusion In conclusion, digital literacy and cybersecurity programs can be taught to children. These programs are good to raise cybersecurity among children. Cybersecurity awareness is related to the methodology to educate the users to be aware of cyber threats and data-stealing. The degree of users’ understanding is related to the importance of information security. There are two main purposes of cybersecurity awareness, namely alerting and understanding the risks. Human-related vulnerability can happen at personal and organizational levels. Future research should include how to train the children behave online based on the age categories because every stages of the children’s development have their own specific critical things. REFERENCES Barros, Martina J Zucule De, and Horst Lazarek. “A Cyber Safety Model for Schools in Mozambique.” In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy (ICISSP 2018), 251–58, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5220/0006573802510258. Giannakas, Filippos, Georgios Kambourakis, and Andreas Papasalouros. “A Critical Review of 13 Years of Mobile Game-Based Learning.” Educational Technology Research and Developmentt 2, no. 1 (2017): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-017-9552-z. Giannakas, Filippos, Georgios Kambourakis, Andreas Papasalouros, and Stefanos Gritzalis. “Security Education and Awareness for K-6 Going Mobile.” International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technology 10, no. 2 (2016): 41–48. Li, Yuchong, and Qinghui Liu. “A Comprehensive Review Study of Cyber-Attacks and Cyber Security ; Emerging Trends and Recent Developments.” Energy Reports, no. Article in Press (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2021.08.126. Prior, Suzanne, and Karen Renaud. “Age-Appropriate Password ‘Best Practice’ Ontologies for Early Educators and Parents.” International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 2020, 100169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2020.100169. Quayyum, Farzana, Daniela S Cruzes, and Letizia Jaccheri. “Cybersecurity Awareness for Children: A Systematic Literature Review.” International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 30, no. 1 (2021): 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2021.100343. Rahim, Noor Hayani Abd. “Assessment of Cybersecurity Awareness Program on Personal Data Protection among Youngster in Malaysia,” 2017. Shamsi, Arwa A Al. “Effectiveness of Cyber Security Awareness Program for Young Children : A Case Study in UAE.” International Journal of Information Technology and Language Studies (IJITLS) 3, no. 2 (2019): 8–29. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28488.14083. Venter, Isabella M, J Blignaut, Karen Renaud, and M Anja Venter. “Cyber Security Education Is as Essential as ‘the Three R’s.’” Heliyon 5, no. August (2019): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02855. The importance of cybersecurity awareness for children Yuliana 48 A. Introduction B. Discussion C. Conclusion