Cyber education is the layer of protection nobody can install for you. Security software stops part of the attacks; the rest get through because someone clicked a link, reused the same password everywhere or answered a request that looked legitimate. This course is the starting point of the CyberAID programme and assumes no technical background.
Why it is needed
Digitalisation moved faster than the habits that should have come with it. We pay, sign documents and deal with school and doctors through apps, but few of us were ever taught what happens to our data along the way. Attackers rarely exploit a rare software vulnerability. They exploit the fact that nobody showed us what an attack looks like.
What an attack actually wants
Beyond the technical vocabulary, almost every attack that reaches an ordinary user is after one of three things:
- Credentials: the password to your email, your online banking or your social accounts. Email is the most valuable of them, because every other account is reset through it.
- Money: directly, through card data or misdirected payments, or indirectly, by encrypting your files and demanding a ransom.
- Access: your device becomes the way in to somebody else, whether that is your employer, your family or an institution.
The four stages of the programme
CyberAID materials are built as a sequence rather than a collection. Each stage assumes something from the one before it.
- Stage 1: Identification. Recognising the signs of an attack: a message demanding something urgently, a login page appearing out of nowhere, an unexpected file.
- Stage 2: Safety. The basics: distinct passwords, two-step authentication, updates installed, backups of what matters.
- Stage 3: Awareness. Understanding the mechanism: why manipulation works, what the attacker is after and what happens to data once it is stolen.
- Stage 4: Protection. Good practice applied consistently, with the tools that fit each context: at home, at school, in the organisation.
Three things that change the most
If you remember one thing from this course, remember these three. They cover most real situations:
- A different password for every important account, kept in a password manager. Reuse turns a single breach into a chain of lost accounts.
- Two-step authentication on at least your email and your online banking. Even if the password leaks, the account stays shut.
- A ten second pause before clicking a link you did not expect. Urgency is the attacker main tool, and the pause defeats it.
Where to go next
After this introduction, the natural next step is the course on phishing attacks, the most common form of attack against individuals. Organisations will find the sector by sector analyses in the NIS 2 Directive series. Everything is listed on the Courses and resources page.
The video recording and the slide presentation below are in Romanian.