Cyber Prevention Session for Year 8s

Cyber Prevention Session for Year 8s

Cyber Prevention practice and session from Merseyside Police for Year 8 students 

Over the last few years, the number of cyber crime offences has increased and people's safety online has become a priority for special units in the police. 

A group of our Year 8 students took part in a Cyber Prevention session with a PCSO called Megan, from Merseyside Police.

As part of their session, Megan took our students through what is deemed as cyber crime and what they should do when the risks occur.

Megan said: "More and more teenagers and young people are getting involved in cyber crime and this is why it is so important for us to come into schools like yours, who are supportive of the prevention and talk about it with you.

"Many do it for fun without even realising the consequences of their actions - but the penalties can be severe."

However, our group of students learnt that there can be ways to use cyber skills in a positive way.

Skills in coding, gaming, computer programming, cyber security or anything IT-related are in high demand and there are many careers and opportunities available to people with an interest in these areas.

PC Pender said: "It's great that we arrange these days for our students because they not only get to look into life outside of school and the real world but they also have the opportunity to take a look into career paths and what they inspire to do."

Here at St Cuthbert's our Creative Computing department, have a 'Coding Club' every week, that is very popular with all year groups. If you would like to know more about it see Miss Clarke for details.

There are also a number of organisations to help young people develop cyber skills:

Cyber Security Challenge -  a series of national competitions, learning programmes and networking in coding and programming.

GCHQ Careers - Here you can find out about what jobs with the tech industry match your skills, there are job profiles too where GCHQ staff talk about what they get up to in their role. 

 

 

 

What is cyber crime?

Cyber crime can be split into two broad categories:

  • Cyber-dependent crimes (or 'pure' cyber crimes) are offences that can only be committed using a computer, computer networks or other forms of information communications technology (ICT).
  • Cyber-enabled crimes (such as fraud, the purchasing of illegal drugs and child sexual exploitation and abuse) can be conducted on or offline, but onliine may take place at an unusual scale and speed.

Types of cyber crime

Cyber crime can include:

  • Unauthorised access - this involves gaining access into someone's computer network without their permission, and then taking control and/or taking information from other people's computers.
     
  • Making, supplying or obtaining malware (malicious software), viruses, spyware, botnets and Remote Access Trojans is illegal. These programmes allow criminals to get into other people's computers to carry out illegal activities.
     
  • Carrying out a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack or 'booting'. A DDoS attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with internet traffic from multiple sources.