Good morning ladies and gentlemen,
I am delighted to be here to celebrate our second makeitsecure campaign and to launch the makeITsecure day 2005!
I would firstly like to start by welcoming and introducing our partners that have joined the makeITsecure consortium:
- Mike Maloney,COO, BT Ireland
- Joe Macri,Managing Director, Microsoft Ireland
- Tim McCarthy,General Manager, Dell Ireland
- Phil Nolan,CEO, Eircom
- Pat Farrell,CEO, Irish Bankers Federation
- Cathal Goan,Director General, RTE
- Austin McCabe,MD, Symantec Ireland
- Teresa Elder,CEO, Vodafone Ireland
- Paul Hogan, MD, Ward Solutions
This year's campaign builds on the success of last year's campaign, and in particular I would like to express a warm welcome to our new partners from both the private sector and the public sector including RTE, NCTE, Vodafone and the Irish Bankers Federation.
This public awareness campaign is particularly strong and effective in that it brings together a unique combination of partners from the public and private sector. The campaign demonstrates how the important messages of protecting your computer information and how to do business in an on line environment can be effectively communicated to the public using the skills, resources and expertise of both the private and public sectors working together.
All members of the consortium have shown a significant commitment to this year's campaign and I would like to thank them for that.
Not only have they come on board and ensured that this campaign was run in a professional and effective manner through the provision of financial funding but they have also used the various channels open to them in each of their organizations to help to disseminate the campaign messages to hundreds and thousands of people.
There has been a considerable amount of campaign activity in the past few weeks since the launch of makeITsecure on October 26th. The breadth and depth of awareness raising activities would not have been possible if we were not supported by a huge network of organisations all across the country.
I would like to thank all of our brand partners, from business organisations to colleges, to representative bodies, the Garda Siochana and An Post, who are promoting the campaign and its messages through their distribution channels, websites, member newsletters, ezines and through the hosting of information events. Thanks also to LGCSB who are hosts of the site.
One significant change for the 2005 campaign over and above 2004 has been the support of RTE through the provision of television airtime. Not only has RTE donated slots for the ads but it has generously given us some very high profile prime time slots, which I think are going to contribute significantly to the overall impact of this year's campaign.
I would like to thank Cathal Goan, Bride Rosney and their team for their support.
I would also like to thank Audrey Conlon of the Internet Advisory Board and Jerome Morrissey of the National Centre for Technology in Education for the expertise and support that both organisations have given to the campaign.
Together, we have worked to create a campaign that will have a lasting effect in terms of helping PC users in Ireland - whether in businesses or in the home - to take advantage of not only all that the Internet has to offer, but also to be aware of the risks that exist when they go online and to help ensure that they have the necessary knowledge and information to use the internet in a safe manner.
The aim of this year's campaign is to do more than just raise awareness. We want to specifically address and educate people about the issues they face online on a day-to-day basis.
The four issues that we focused on this year included: Phishing, Spyware, Identity Theft and Child Safety Online.
It is often difficult to know how serious these issues are for PC users in Ireland. I am going to share with you some recent statistics gathered by Espion for my Department, which highlights the significance of these;
- "If an Irish PC user spends 3 hours browsing each day they can expect at least one spyware infection in each week of browsing"
- During a two-week period from Oct 24th to Nov 7th the research showed that a sample computer connected to the Internet in Ireland was attacked 3,119 times.
- 46% of these attacks came from computers in Europe, 35.4% from computers in Asia, 12.5% from computers in North America, 3% Australia, 3.1% Rest of World.
These findings give some insight into the issues that users need to be aware of. It is important, however, that these kinds of statistics don't deter people from using computers or surfing the Internet, as these are now invaluable tools for business, leisure, education and communication.
So, what is today all about? Today is makeITsecure Day. What we are asking PC users to do today is, to take a few minutes to think about IT security issues and to take some action around these issues. We all lead busy lives but it is important that we take a little bit of time to focus on IT security - an issue that is becoming more important each year.
Ends