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KSA: Training Camps for Children to Raise Awareness About Cyber Threats

KSA: Training Camps for Children to Raise Awareness About Cyber Threats
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KSA: Training Camps for Children to Raise Awareness About Cyber Threats

KSA: Training Camps for Children to Raise Awareness About Cyber Threats

Kaspersky Lab, a global cyber-security provider, has partnered with the Cyber-Security for Children Association (CyberKids) to launch cyber-security training camps for children across Saudi Arabia. The goal of these camps is to equip children with the skills and knowledge they need to surf the web safely and protect themselves from cyber-attacks and cyber-bullying.

The camp helps address parents’ concerns about the threats their children face online, which a recent study conducted by Kaspersky shows parents in Saudi Arabia take very seriously. Indeed, according to Kaspersky’s Family Report, 60% of parents regulate the time their children spend online. Parents of children between seven and twelve are extremely concerned about their children’s exposure while harmful content online, with 33% of them identifying this as their primary concern, while nearly a third (29%) feel the need to control or oversee their kids’ online browsing and internet usage.

Speaking about this partnership, Sultan Al Ghamdi Founder and Chairman of Cyber-Security for Children Association (CyberKids) explains that: “As cybercrime around the world continues to evolve, it is our duty to be able to provide the young generation with the relevant knowledge needed to tackle cybercrime when they’re older. By introducing these training sessions to children around the country, we hope to create a foundation for a cyber-savvy generation.”

Amir Kanaan, managing director for Kaspersky Lab in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, shares his goals, saying, “We at Kaspersky believe that this partnership with the Cyber-Security for Children Association (CyberKids) is crucial for cultivating a community that is aware of the internet’s dangers in the same way that it is aware of its benefits. Educating youths about the importance of cyber-security and educating them is a step in the direction of a world where children and adolescents can safely enjoy the benefits of the internet.”

In fact, experts at Kaspersky point to cyber-criminals adopting new methods in their attacks. Web Skimming, a method for stealing payment details, including credit card information, from online shopping websites after a malicious code is inserted into the website’s source code, but while it not a novel method, Kaspersky says that attackers previously used to direct the data to domain names that seem legitimate but include a letter that shows that the domain is fake. However, attackers using the new method, which Kaspersky says has used to successfully steal information from over 20 websites, create real Google Analytics accounts, reroute users’ data to those accounts and then collect users’ data from them, making the attacks harder to identify.

Security solutions have been developed to protect users by detecting and blocking attacks that use this malicious code, while users can also opt to disable Google Analytics by using Safe Browsing features that are available on various internet browsers.

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Why Greenland? Remote but Resource-Rich Island Occupies a Key Position in a Warming World

Large icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP)
Large icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP)
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Why Greenland? Remote but Resource-Rich Island Occupies a Key Position in a Warming World

Large icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP)
Large icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP)

Remote, icy and mostly pristine, Greenland plays an outsized role in the daily weather experienced by billions of people and in the climate changes taking shape all over the planet.

Greenland is where climate change, scarce resources, tense geopolitics and new trade patterns all intersect, said Ohio University security and environment professor Geoff Dabelko.

The world's largest island is now "central to the geopolitical, geoeconomic competition in many ways," partly because of climate change, Dabelko said.

Since his first term in office, President-elect Donald Trump has expressed interest in acquiring Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally and a founding member of NATO. It is also home to a large US military base.

Why is Greenland coveted? Think of Greenland as an open refrigerator door or thermostat for a warming world, and it's in a region that is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe, said New York University climate scientist David Holland.

Locked inside are valuable rare earth minerals needed for telecommunications, as well as uranium, billions of untapped barrels of oil and a vast supply of natural gas that used to be inaccessible but is becoming less so.

Many of the same minerals are currently being supplied mostly by China, so other countries such as the United States are interested, Dabelko said. Three years ago, the Denmark government suspended oil development offshore from the territory of 57,000 people.

But more than the oil, gas or minerals, there's ice — a "ridiculous" amount, said climate scientist Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine.

If that ice melts, it would reshape coastlines across the globe and potentially shift weather patterns in such a dramatic manner that the threat was the basis of a Hollywood disaster movie. Greenland holds enough ice that if it all melts, the world's seas would rise by 24 feet (7.4 meters). Nearly a foot of that is so-called zombie ice, already doomed to melt no matter what happens, a 2022 study found.

Since 1992, Greenland has lost about 182 billion tons (169 billion metric tons) of ice each year, with losses hitting 489 billion tons a year (444 billion metric tons) in 2019.

Greenland will be "a key focus point" through the 21st century because of the effect its melting ice sheet will have on sea levels, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. "It will likely become a bigger contributor in the future."

That impact is "perhaps unstoppable," NYU's Holland said.

Are other climate factors at play? Greenland also serves as the engine and on/off switch for a key ocean current that influences Earth's climate in many ways, including hurricane and winter storm activity. It's called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, and it's slowing down because more fresh water is being dumped into the ocean by melting ice in Greenland, Serreze said.

A shutdown of the AMOC conveyor belt is a much-feared climate tipping point that could plunge Europe and parts of North America into prolonged freezes, a scenario depicted in the 2004 movie "The Day After Tomorrow."

"If this global current system were to slow substantially or even collapse altogether — as we know it has done in the past — normal temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe would change drastically," said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. "Agriculture would be derailed, ecosystems would crash, and ‘normal’ weather would be a thing of the past."

Greenland is also changing color as it melts from the white of ice, which reflects sunlight, heat and energy away from the planet, to the blue and green of the ocean and land, which absorb much more energy, Holland said.

Greenland plays a role in the dramatic freeze that two-thirds of the United States is currently experiencing. And back in 2012, weather patterns over Greenland helped steer Superstorm Sandy into New York and New Jersey, according to winter weather expert Judah Cohen of the private firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research.

Because of Greenland's mountains of ice, it also changes patterns in the jet stream, which brings storms across the globe and dictates daily weather. Often, especially in winter, a blocking system of high pressure off Greenland causes Arctic air to plunge to the west and east, smacking North America and Europe, Cohen said.

Why is Greenland's location so important? Because it straddles the Arctic circle between the United States, Russia and Europe, Greenland is a geopolitical prize that the US and others have eyed for more than 150 years. It's even more valuable as the Arctic opens up more to shipping and trade.

None of that takes into consideration the unique look of the ice-covered island that has some of the Earth's oldest rocks.

"I see it as insanely beautiful. It's eye-watering to be there," said Holland, who has conducted research on the ice more than 30 times since 2007. "Pieces of ice the size of the Empire State Building are just crumbling off cliffs and crashing into the ocean. And also, the beautiful wildlife, all the seals and the killer whales. It’s just breathtaking."