Background
In 2011, the EU Agency for Cybersecurity was asked to assess the feasibility and explore various options on how a European Cybersecurity Month could become an effective instrument to raising awareness about cybersecurity challenges. The Agency was involved in assessing the establishment and organisation of ECSM - 2011 Feasibility study.
In 2012, for the first time, the European Cybersecurity Month took place as a pilot project across Europe. As pilot countries the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom participated in various activities and events throughout the month of October to raise awareness of cybersecurity. This project was supported by the EU Agency for Cybersecurity and by the European Commission.
In 2013, the Cybersecurity Strategy of the European Union called on EU Member States to organise a yearly cybersecurity month with the support of the Agency and the involvement of the private sector, with the goal to raise awareness among end users.
Form 2013 the ECSM has taken place every year in the month of October, proposing each year a focus on differ topics related to cybersecurity. Results shows that each new ECSM campaign is out performing previous years, especially in terms of activities organised and outreach of people via Social Media.
ECSM Through the Years
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In 2011, the EU Agency for Cybersecurity assessed the establishment and organisation of a European Cybersecurity Month campaign. |
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In 2012, the ECSM campaign took place as a pilot project across Europe. |
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In 2013, ENISA worked to developed further the European Cyber-Security Month. The approach was to widen the number of participating Member States to ensure sufficient focus on a number of key themes and to profile the event as a joint EU campaign with global outreach. |
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In 2014, a total of 184 activities took place across 30 countries. |
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In 2015, a total of 242 activities took place across 32 countries. |
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In 2016, a total of 455 activities took place across 32 countries. |
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In 2017, a total of 532 activities took place across 37 countries. |
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In 2018, a total of 567 activities took place across 35 countries. |
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In 2019, a total of 525 activities took place across 36 countries. |
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In 2020, the COVID19 pandemic changed the scope of the ECSM, requiring a fundamental shift to the digital environment. ENISA set an ambitious online campaign, entitled ‘Think Before U Click’, which was a success, garnering three times more engagement than the previous year. A total of 419 activities took place (mostly online), with an increased reachout of 9.8M users and increased mentions by 265%. |