Safe online? Centre for Cyber Security takes steps forward towards a safer Internet
Safeonweb is a service provided by the Centre for Cyber Security Belgium (CCB) to everyone in Belgium. The mission of Safeonweb is to help keep the general public safe online. Its activities can be broken down into 3 categories.
First and foremost, Safeonweb constantly provides up-to-date, accurate and simple information to the public via its website www.safeonweb.be, its Facebook page, its Twitter account and the Safeonweb App.
Safeonweb also runs a large-scale annual campaign about a specific topic with the aim of not only informing people, but also encouraging them to take action or do things that can significantly increase cyber security.
Finally, Safeonweb is the flagship of what is termed the BePhish project, which can quickly get suspicious links blocked. For 6 years, the CCB has been counting on the cooperation of everyone to report suspicious messages to suspicious@safeonweb.be.
This is a great example of constructive cooperation between citizens and their government, and is unique in Europe. It shows that our country can achieve great things despite the limited resources. By fighting cybercrime together, we will be able to fight it even more effectively in the coming years. There is still much work to be done, but we should not give up.
Information to the public
Overall awareness about Safeonweb is increasing year after year, but there is still room for improvement in this regard. 46% of people in Belgium know Safeonweb, if only by name. Awareness is higher among Dutch speakers (53%) than among French speakers (37%). Awareness is highest among the 36–55 age bracket (52%), followed by the 55+ bracket (49%) and the under-35 bracket (35%)
The number of visits to the www.safeonweb.be website grows every year. In 2022, there were 2.4 million visits. The gender distribution is balanced (M: 48%, F: 52%), but 80% of visitors are older than 35.
In 2022, the annual TV/radio/postcard campaign reached 41% of the population, and 41% of them subsequently took action to keep their devices safe. This means that a total of 17% of Belgians were triggered to take action as a result of this campaign.
16–35 year olds – the group who most frequently downloads apps – most often claim that they took action after seeing the Safeonweb campaign. They take more concrete safety actions than those over 55.
Everyone, from the very young to the very old, carries around a smartphone in their pocket these days. We use it for more and more purposes: to stay in touch with friends, to make purchases, to watch movies, to play games or to do homework.
Criminals and scammers consider this to be a great opportunity. They develop viruses specifically designed to target mobile devices and have launched an all-out attack. Keeping your smartphone safe is not that difficult, however. The main way devices get infected is by downloading untrustworthy apps.
In 2022, 6 million messages were sent to suspicious@safeonweb.be (4.5 million in 2021). This represented nearly 16,500 messages per day (12,300 in 2021). People therefore know suspicious@safeonweb.be very well.
Thanks to these messages, we were able to take down 664,250 unique URLs and 76,151 unique domains.