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NCSA Joins Effort to Advocate for a National Cyber Awareness Campaign ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA), the only advocacy group dedicated to ensuring the privacy, reliability and integrity of information systems, today announced its participation and support for the first in a series of roundtable events addressing cyber security, ethics and safety education for children K-12. The first roundtable discussion, held yesterday in Washington, D.C., was co-sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA). In July 2005, CSIA issued a white paper, "Teaching Children Cyber Security and Ethics," which called for the creation of a national-level endeavor for teaching children K-12 cyber security, ethics and safety. This roundtable series follows up on that paper and is the first step in creating a national cyber awareness campaign to make cyber security, safety and ethics curriculum and other teaching tools easily accessible to all educators, and create a culture of common sense cyber security, safety and ethics to enhance the education and economic opportunities the Internet provides for youth. "While the Internet provides children with great educational benefits to advance academically, the growing amount of cyber threats we face online cannot be ignored," said Paul Kurtz, executive director of CSIA. "Proper guidance from parents and educators is absolutely critical to teach our youth cyber security, safety and ethics. We hope the result of these roundtable discussions will be a coordinated, national-level cyber awareness program that will help our children and parents understand the importance of a safe online environment." The focus of yesterday's roundtable event included these topics: * Awareness Initiatives to Promote Cyber Security, Safety and Ethics To help parents and educators understand the need for a cyber security, safety and ethics curriculum in the classroom, the roundtable participants discussed developing a communications and awareness strategy to inform educators, administrators and parents on the need for these courses in schools. They exchanged ideas on how to create a positive cyber security message for educators, vet awareness messages with educators for their feedback and develop a list of stakeholders that does not just include educators. * Provide Educators with Tools and Resources Easily Incorporated in Classrooms Educators face a number of requirements and curriculum they must teach their students, and this education roundtable worked to develop mechanisms and education tools to help educators incorporate cyber security, safety and ethics into the required curriculum. Participants brainstormed ways to draft curriculum that suites educators' schedules and lesson plans and incorporates cyber security curriculum into the teaching standards process. They also examined ways to communicate with the education community on how to easily access and obtain education material. * Develop Professional and Policy Tools for Administrators and Educators Educators and administrators will face roadblocks while incorporating online education in the classrooms as a result of cyber security, safety and ethics issues, and some educators may want professional training. This roundtable discussion explored the idea of providing professional development materials to educators and providing administrators and educators with template acceptable use policies. Added Kurtz, "CSIA has worked diligently with NCSA to organize these roundtable events to bring the necessary cyber awareness tools and messages to parents and educators everywhere. We hope these roundtable discussions will put the risks in perspective so we are better equipped in guiding our nation's children toward the educational opportunities and away from the risks." In addition to CSIA and NCSA, other roundtable participants included: Business Software Alliance, Carnegie Mellon University, The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), Department of Homeland Security, Educause, Enough is Enough, International Society for Technology in Education, Internet Keep Safe Coalition, Maryland State Department of Education, NetSmartz, Socrates Institute, University of Maryland College of Education and WebWiseKids. About the Cyber Security Industry Alliance CSIA is the only advocacy group dedicated to ensuring the privacy, reliability and integrity of information systems through public policy, technology, education and awareness. The organization is led by CEOs from the world's top security providers, who offer the technical expertise, depth and focus to encourage a better understanding of security issues. It is the belief of the CSIA that a comprehensive approach to ensuring the security of information systems is fundamental to global protection and economic stability. To learn more about the CSIA, please visit our Web site at http://www.csialliance.org/ or call +1-703-894-2742. Members of the CSIA include Application Security, Inc.; BindView Corp. (NASDAQ:BVEW); Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:CHKP); Citadel Security Software Inc. (NASDAQ:CDSS); Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS); Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE:CA); Entrust, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENTU); Internet Security Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:ISSX); iPass Inc. (NASDAQ:IPAS); Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:JNPR); McAfee, Inc. (NYSE:MFE); PGP Corporation; Qualys, Inc.; RSA Security Inc. (NASDAQ:RSAS); Secure Computing Corporation (NASDAQ:SCUR), Surety, Inc.; Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC), TechGuard Security, LLC, Visa International and Vontu, Inc. DATASOURCE: Cyber Security Industry Alliance CONTACT: Stacy Simpson of Merritt Group, +1-703-390-1528, , for CSIA Web site: http://www.csialliance.org/

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