HKBN partners with Dialogue In The Dark Foundation to educate students on cybersecurity

Telecom company HKBN Talent CSI Fund and HKBN Group (HKBN) have teamed up with Dialogue In The Dark Foundation (DIDF) to launch a brand-new campaign on cybersecurity – Cyber Wellness In The Dark for students aged 9 to 12.

Well known for providing experiential activities to promote social inclusion, the foundation offers Hong Kong’s first pitch-dark experience to empower participants with cyber wellness knowledge by navigating the unknown risks and perils online. The tour is funded by HKBN Talent CSI Fund, and co-designed by DIDF and HKBN cybersecurity experts.

Throughout the one-hour tour led by a visually-impaired guide, participants will be given a white cane to experience life as a visually-impaired person, followed by a 30-minute post-event debriefing about cyber wellness, featuring how to create and manage secure passwords, identifying true and fake information online and how to protect personal data .

Cora Chu, chief executive officer of DIDF said, “Today, the younger generation is growing up in a pervasively digital world. Their awareness to cyber safety may not be vigilant enough. In view of this, we designed this immersive experience for youths to experience what life is like for the visually impaired. Walking into complete darkness, as it is similar to going online without cyber safety awareness.”

Wilson Tang, co-owner and director of HKBN’s Information Security said: “As a leading force in customising cybersecurity solutions for residential and corporate customers, we are delighted to purposefully leverage our e-security knowledge and create a fun, engaging and uniquely educational Dialogue in the Dark experience, benefitting our communities and their wellbeing with a digital inclusive future.”  

In February this year, the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre (HKCERT) of the Hong Kong Productivity Council said that with the wider use of information technology, the threat of cyber attacks cannot be overlooked. Hence both enterprises and individual must raise their awareness of information security with preventative measures in place so that the community can effectively respond to the increasingly sophisticated and complex cyber attacks. In 2021, HKCERT handled 7,725 security incidents.

Phishing (3,737 cases representing 48% of the total) was the principal source of the incidents, up 7% from 2020, rising for the fourth consecutive year and reaching a new high. More than 70% of the incidents involved online shopping or online banking. The second most common incident was botnets (3,479 cases, 45%), about half of which belonged to the Avalanche botnet.

Botnet incidents fell by 16% from 2020. The main reason is believed to be that 35 regions have joined forces in 2020 to successfully destroy Necurs, one of the world’s largest botnets, thereby ensuring locally connected devices infected with this virus are no longer under its control.

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