Approximately 30 impactful people in the cyber security field, hailing from the public, private, academic and NGO milieu, participated on Tuesday in the fourth CyberCitizen Initiative workshop organized by Aalto University in Finland in cooperation with the National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC) and the European Commission's Representation to Romania.

The participants engaged in a debate on the importance of the involvement of Romanian citizens in increasing society resilience and testing the Cyber Citizen platform.

Mara Roman, Deputy Head of the European Commission's Representation to Romania, Marianne Lindroth - Project Manager, Maria-Manuela Catrina - DNSC deputy director, and Sanna Leminen - consul with the Finnish Embassy in Romania, gave the opening addresses, with the organizers emphasizing the relevance of education and the importance of raising citizen awareness about the need for online safety. The EU's cyber security strategy, as well as related ongoing projects were also referenced.

Maria-Manuela Catrina gave a brief presentation of DNSC's goals and priorities, in its capacity as the national authority with responsibilities in cyber security education and training, and also competent for the regulation, supervision and management of the security of the national civil cyberspace.

The second part of the workshop included two work sessions where the participants discussed topics such as: the major cyber security threats to citizens; developing the citizens' key skills for being able to operate safely in the digital environment; the training currently offered to Romanian citizens; the content that needs to be included in the Cyber Citizen learning platform; popularizing and familiarizing citizens with the Cyber Citizen platform.

The Representation of the European Commission to Romania hosted and participated in the workshop dedicated to the Cyber Citizen Initiative (Home - Cyber Citizen) organized by the National Cyber Security Directorate in cooperation with Finland's Aalto University.

"The CCI project, funded by the EU through the NextGenerationEU program, will develop a European learning model for improving citizens' cyber security skills. The platform and learning tools will be available at the end of 2024 and will take into account the citizens' diverse level of preparation and understanding of the risks in the online environment. Improving the level of preparedness is important, given that in 2023 Romania placed 27th in the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) ranking. Cyber security is a goal featured in all the policies of the European Commission with the role of preparing Europe and its citizens for the digital era," said Deputy Head of the European Commission's Representation to Romania Mara Roman.

Coordinated by Aalto University, the CCI project is dedicated to promoting a safe digital culture across the European Union, seeking to set in place a standardized European teaching model, as well as the first steps for its implementation. To this effect, the establishment of common practices and models is being considered in order to provide European citizens with fundamental cyber security skills. Among the challenges encountered within the project are the differences in perception between EU member states regarding the competences considered basic, and the definition of cyber security competence objectives. The project approaches these aspects by conducting online and on-site consultations with interested actors from EU member states in order to test the relevance of the proposed methods. AGERPRES (RO - author: George Banciulea, editor: Andreea Marinescu; EN - editor: Simona Klodnischi)