50 SHSs to participate in 2023 National Cybersecurity Challenge

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Dubbed: National cybersecurity challenge; empowering the next generation, the competition will feature 50 SHSs from all the 16 regions of the country.

The Cyber Security Authority (CSA) has launched the 2023 edition of the National Cybersecurity Challenge to promote cybersecurity awareness among senior high school (SHS) students.

Dubbed: National cybersecurity challenge; empowering the next generation, the competition will feature 50 SHSs from all the 16 regions of the country.

Speaking at a short ceremony in Accra to launch the competition and announced broadcast journalist Kafui Dey of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation as ambassador, the acting Director of Child Online Protection of at CSA, Afua Brown-Eyeson, said the country will be divided into four zones—northern, middle, eastern and southern and the winners of those zones will compete at the grand finale in October as part of the 2023 national cybersecurity awareness month.

“The contestants will be taken through the child online protection (COP) provisions in the Cybersecurity Act, (Act 1038), 2020, digital footprint, social engineering, and open-source intelligence, among others,” she said.

The CSA successfully organised the first-ever cybersecurity competition for senior high schools in the country among six (6) schools selected from five regions last year with the Presbyterian Boys Senior High School emerging as winners.

Increase in internet usage calls for child protection

Ms. Brown-Eyeson said the exponential increase in internet penetration in the country calls for heightened measures to protect children online.

With about 17 million internet users in the country as of 2022, representing 53 percent of the population, she said as dependency on digital technologies surges, so do cybercrimes and that cybercriminals are seizing every opportunity to exploit vulnerabilities against children.

“Hence, the cybersecurity challenge to equipping children with cybersecurity skills at this age is required to keep them safe online and prevent them from causing harm to their peers,” she stated.

Citing a report from United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Ms. Brown-Eyeson said more than 13,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse were reportedly accessed or uploaded from Ghana in 2020.

It is therefore, no surprise INTERPOL’s Global Crime Trends Key Findings in 2022 ranked Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) among the top 10 crime trends perceived to pose a ‘high’ or ‘very high threat to countries.

“Students are often unaware of the risks of excessive sharing, and this is where young people are preyed on by malicious actors,” she said.

Government committed to online safety

Against this backdrop, Ms Brown-Eyeson reiterated the government’s “enormous commitment to the online safety of young people” leading to the passing of the Cybersecurity Act, 2020 (Act 1038) which criminalises various online cases of abuse against children (Sections 62-66) and developed the National Child Online Protection Framework, which will be submitted to Cabinet for approval.

She said the prioritization of child online protection issues in Ghana’s National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy is another intervention aimed at addressing current developments and risks related to the activities of children and young people in cyberspace.

 

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