Netizens – Cyber security is real

Gone perhaps are the days of battle with swords and spears. Nowadays, warfare happens over the click of a mouse and slashes of fingers on the keyboard. The internet is the world’s new battlefield and cyber sleuths, the new goliaths to be wary off. The increasing recurrence of cyber frauds have normalised their existence in our mind maps. From bank call frauds to cyber bullying and data leakage, the list of cyber-crimes is endless as well as fast-evolving.

Therefore, it is essential for the 21^st century tech-savvy citizens rather ‘netizens’ to learn ways on how to identify and protect cyber-crimes. Since there is no direct immunisation programme yet, the protective measures must be learned through a conscious step taken in the right direction. And like all major awareness campaigns, the changes have to be initiated from the bottom up.

Apeejay School, Noida, a pioneer in taking education to its correct application understands the importance of cyber awareness.  To help students surf through this seemingly difficult ‘techy thing’, the Code Club of the school celebrated its silver jubilee with the concept ‘Cyber Awareness Year 2023’. The theme for the workshop, ‘Be Cyber Aware! Cyber Alert! And Cyber Safe!’ was in sync with the ‘Cyber Awareness Campaign’ initiated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.

A first in a series of a plethora of activities to be organised round the year, the Cyber awareness workshop was conducted for students across classes 6-8.

Class 11-A Computer Science students took sessions with the middle school students. The Cyber guardians project group (comprising Aadya Jain, Arin Singhal, Arush Pratap, Sharma, Arya Agarwal, Ratna Srivastava, Samaira Shariq and Lakshya Kumar) gave a thoughtful presentation on ‘Cybercrimes and Security’.

The Kryptera Project group (comprising Aditya Dange, Aryaman Rahul Srivastava, Atharv Singhal, Krish Kharangra, Nakul Zutshi, Tanmay Agarwal and Pallav Shrivastava) designed a unique website devoted to cyber security. Their website: ( https://Kryptera.aryamansri.repl.co.) contains encryption and decryption of a message, spreads information about the various types of cybercrimes. It also shares some cyber security tips and practices to protect one’s data.

The Zephyr project group (comprising Garv Jain, Hassan Munawar Ali, Narayan Parasher, Navya Agarwal, Sanka Vijayalakshmi Anagha, Vidit Dang and Rishit Katiyar) generated awareness on how to identify and prevent Cyber-bullying. They also shared the results of a survey conducted by them on the same.

The cyber shield project group (consisting Ayansh Agarwal, Krishna Gupta, Nabhya Parasrampuria, Pratyush Kumar, Samyak Sharma, Shreyansh Khatri and Paarth Singh) conducted an in-depth survey among the class 6-12 students to assess their knowledge on cyber threats and prevention. 

The SpyAware project group (Priyank Raj, Raghav Anand, Aditya Kapoor, Aryan Sinha, Himansu Biswal, Ronit Khanna and Vasu Bansal) emphasized the need for keeping spyware off your computers and mobile devices. They advised the audience to stay aware and away from links, attachments, and pop-ups that look suspicious. Each team also designed various challenges for the audience.

The workshop concluded with Udeeksh Kapoor and Anaya Jha, students of class 11 C highlighting the importance of ‘Netiquettes’ which explains cyber security etiquettes one must follow on the internet.

Education Director, Ms. Ritu Kohli congratulated class 11 students for their efforts in organising the workshop. She reminded students that technology is exciting and constantly changing, thus one needs a safe manner of interaction on the internet with others. She mentioned, ‘Teach yourself to use and not abuse technology.’