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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Technologies are increasingly becoming a part of the daily lives of younger generations and with no
supervised usage of these technologies, teenagers are exposed to various threats. To raise the awareness
of teenagers in ages between 14 and 17 years old, and to provide a methodological tool for educational
professionals working with the young and even for enforcement professionals investigating the
cyber cases, an educational game about cyber security was designed and prototyped.
A detective game was devised, where the player takes the role of a detective to investigate a cyber
crime. To solve the case, the player must play several mini-games, where each one explores a specific
thematic about cyber security. For example, in the prototype, the situation that the detective needs
to solve is a ransomware case. The situations are introduced by a tridimensional animation, which
appears as a cutscene introducing the game scene. It is an animation where one can see a teen trying
to buy a pair of sneakers online and after downloading an application suggested in the website, his
mobile phone is locked. Thus, he decides to search help from the police, where the detective will try
to solve the problem. For that, the player has to solve several mini-games about sharing information
in social networks, phishing and the importance of creating strong passwords. In these mini-games
the player makes decisions and learns based on that, i.e., at the end of each mini-game each decision
is explained to the player regardless of the choice being correct or incorrect. This way, the player is
always informed of the various situations that can occur based on their behavior/decisions online.
The prototype was developed for mobile devices and some preliminary tests were performed with
teenagers. The tests showed that the teenagers improved their cyber security knowledge after playing
the game.
A cyber security educational game can be used as a tool for younger generations because it uses the
technologies that are part of their daily lives and can contribute to the growing of their cyber security
awareness.
In the future, we hope to develop the full game, where other thematic will be included, namely, talking
with strangers in social networks, dangers related with the webcam and microphone, online piracy and
cyber bullying.
Description
Keywords
Game - Cyber security educational