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ENISA Executive Director, Juhan Lepassaar added: "One of the weakest links in cybersecurity is humans. Explaining how social engineering works in practice, creates awareness of potential traps.”

The official kick-off of the campaign will take place at the Cyber Days 2023 event of the European Parliament on 26, 27 and 28 September.

What is social engineering?

Social engineering occurs when someone is manipulated into performing actions or giving up sensitive and/or personal information. Scammers will use the information disclosed by the victims in tricky ways meant to deceive them. This is how attackers take advantage of their victim’s trust in digital communications. Being tricked into performing an action is how we unconsciously help attackers to perform the attack they have devised.

ENISA identifies and analyses current and future cyber threats including the trends around social engineering. The increase in collection of behavioural data can lead to more targeted phishing attacks. The use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation by machine learning allow attackers to analyse user behaviour and launch targeted attacks.

The ENISA Threat Landscape has found that phishing has become the most common initial vector, meaning social engineering is the most popular attack type to gain access to an organisation. Once attackers have access to the inside of an organisation, further attacks can be carried out such as ransomware.

The campaign will draw the attention of users of all ages to the different social engineering techniques used by attackers against them and enable them exercise caution. Activities and information will be provided to help them get familiar with the various ways in which they can be tricked by cyber criminals. They will also learn how to identify and spot potential scams.

The 2023 ECSM awards: who are the lucky winners this year?

The ECSM Awards is an initiative which aims to highlight successful and/or innovative promotional material produced by EU Member States (MS) over the years.

The awards fall under three categories: Best video, best infographic, & best educational material and the winning material is promoted alongside the ECSM campaign during October.

And the 2023 winners are:
• Best video from Slovenia: Safe at the office (173) Vodstvo | Varni v pisarni #ECSM - YouTube
• Best infographic from Greece: Identity Theft Online Infographic: Κλοπή Ταυτότητας στο Διαδίκτυο – Identity Theft Online | SaferInternet4kids
• Best teaching material from Czechia: Cyber Fairy tales CYBER FAIRY TALES – EDUCATIONAL WEBSITE FOR CHILDREN, YOUTH AND TEACHERS (kyberpohadky.cz)
About the ECSM

The European Cybersecurity Month (ECSM) is the European Union’s annual campaign dedicated to promoting cybersecurity among citizens and organisations, and to providing up-to-date digital security information through awareness raising and the sharing of good practices. Each year, for the entire month of October, hundreds of activities take place across Europe, including conferences, workshops, trainings, webinars, presentations, online quizzes and more, to provide resources for citizens to learn more about protecting themselves online. The ECSM has been coordinated by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) for over 10 years and is supported by The European Commission, Europol, The European Central Bank and EU Member States, EFTA countries, and more than 300 partners (governments, universities, think tanks, NGOs, professional associations, businesses) from Europe and beyond. Please visit cybersecuritymonth.eu/ @CyberSecMonth and cybersecuritymonth on Instagram.

Further information:

ECSM awareness material: https://cybersecuritymonth.eu/resources
ECSM 2023: ECSM (cybersecuritymonth.eu)
ECSM cybersecurity quiz: https://cybersecuritymonth.eu/quiz
ECSM Kick-off – Cyber Days 2023 at European Parliament