Trend Micro partners with Life Education to help children ‘bCyberwise’

SYDNEY, 17 April, 2019 – Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today announced it will be an official partner of bCyberwise, a module from Life Education that helps students in Years 3-5 learn about cybersafety, cybersecurity and cyber ethics, and helps parents educate their children on what it means to be a good digital citizen.

Australian children are continuing to embrace technology and the Internet with research from The Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner finding that 85 per cent of Australian children see the Internet as important to their lives and spend up to 19 hours a week on digital devices outside of school. Despite this adoption many children are not aware of the dangers that exist online, including cyberbullying, fake news, unwanted contact by strangers and web threats. Recent research by Trend Micro also found that one-in-10 Australian parents admit they don’t keep track of how many devices their children are exposed to or use parental controls on smartphones and other connected devices, meaning they often struggle to manage their kids’ online security.

“Parents and schools are increasingly recognising the need for greater education around digital safety, including how to distinguish between safe and suspicious situations online. Children are spending more time on the Internet than ever before and being digital is now an integral part of their school learning, so it’s crucial they’re taught the necessary skillsets to manage safety and security online as early as possible,” said Tim Falinski, Senior Director Consumer, APAC for Trend Micro.

“As cybersecurity becomes increasingly a digital imperative with national relevance, the bCyberwise module is an important step in building digital education for young Australians. We’re very excited to partner with Life Education and extend our ongoing commitment to educate children and their families about how to enjoy their digital lives safely.”

Life Education Australia CEO Verity Blackman said that in an increasingly online world, the partnership would help protect children from online risks and support them to be positive digital citizens.

“These days, children face new challenges. In response to growing concerns about online safety, in 2016 we launched our dedicated cybersafety module ‘bCyberwise’, which has become Life Education’s most sought after program, reaching around 80,000 students nationally in the past 12 months.

“This partnership will enable us to further adapt and evolve our program to ensure children have the skills and knowledge they need to face the complex and changing nature of the digital environment.”

The partnership with Trend Micro and Life Education commenced 1st April and involves Trend Micro drawing on its knowledge and experience from its Internet Safety for Kids and Families program to help support and bolster the bCyberwise module content.

Life Education will also support Trend Micro’s annual What’s Your Story? competition – now in its fifth year – which aims to improve Internet safety for kids by facilitating an open and positive discussion about the digital world.

For more information about bCyberwise see here.

For more information about What’s Your Story? see here.

 

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, helps to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Our innovative solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data centres, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. All our products work together to seamlessly share threat intelligence and provide a connected threat defence with centralised visibility and control, enabling better, faster protection. With more than 6,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world’s most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organisations to secure their journey to the cloud. For more information, visit www.trendmicro.com.au.

About Life Education

Life Education is Australia’s largest provider of preventive health and drug education to school children. With the help of its iconic mascot Healthy Harold the giraffe, Life Education has been empowering children and young people to make safer and healthy choices for 40 years. We work in more than 4,000 schools and preschools across mainland Australia, with more than 700,000 school children participating in our program each year. Our 130 specially trained educators visit students in every state and territory across Australia via our 100 mobile classrooms.