A virtual journey into space to learn how to protect yourself online: everyone can do it with Space Shelter, an online video game just presented by Google and Euroconsumers, the organization that brings together various European consumer associations, including Altroconsumo for Italy. In particular, the project was carried out together with the counterparts Ocu (Spain), Test-Achats (Belgium) and DecoProteste (Portugal).
Through simple and futuristic graphics, Space Shelter guides the player through the basics of cyber security. The first quiz immediately sets the record straight about the seriousness of the problem: how many passwords have been stolen in recent years? What is the most common password in the world? The answers are surprising for those who are cyber-starved.
There are three challenges: first to get on board the spaceship, then to leave for space and finally to dock at the space station. To install the shields of the spaceship, for example, you need to learn how to choose a really effective password, consisting not only of letters (including capital letters) but also of numbers and special characters, and to understand how two-factor authentication works, which in addition the password requires the sending of a text message or a notification on the user’s mobile phone, so that an attacker is not enough to steal only the login data to enter, for example, the victim’s home banking.
During the game, which can be completed in 10-15 minutes, the use of a password manager is also recommended, i.e. services that allow you to store all your passwords securely, without having to remember them one by one (and the safest ones are, not surprisingly, the most difficult to memorize). Once the engines are started and the spaceship has taken off, you have to dodge the asteroids, which in this are phishing emails. In Space Shelter the player can learn to recognize a phishing attempt with some very common practical examples – such as the fake bank message that tries to alarm the customer, inviting him to enter his credentials on a fake site but identical to the original. – and also to recognize a fake site from the url, for example www.gO00gle.com instead of google.com. A series of quizzes allows the player to memorize the new information just acquired, putting himself to the test.
As we have repeatedly written in Repubblica, every web user is beset by phishing attempts, most of the time rendered harmless by the spam filters of the email boxes, but sometimes phishing travels via social media or on messaging apps such as Whatsapp and if the message comes from a known person, there is a risk of lowering the defenses. One of the latest news, even more dangerous, is that of “vishing” in which the scammer calls the victim on the phone, pretending to be an operator of his bank, and manages to obtain the credentials to rob him.
Space Shelter is launched just around the corner of October, the European month of cybersecurity. Every day, Google automatically blocks over 100 million phishing attempts through Gmail’s spam filters, protects four billion photos, and Google Play Protect verifies the security of a hundred billion apps.
The initiative of Google and Euroconsumers is aimed at everyone but, in particular, “the target of families with children is of great interest to us, of course, but also that of teenagers, whom we intend to involve more and more on the issue of digital wellbeing “explains Marco Pierani, director of media relations at Euroconsumers.
To “dock the spaceship” safely to as many citizens as possible, according to Pierani, the recipe that a national government should follow has a few simple ingredients: “Training and information as much as possible, with an approach that is as agile and agile as possible. not very bureaucratic to support private initiatives, such as the one between Google and Euroconsumers “. Initiatives that, he continues, could also reach the school world, “where the public makes its assets available”. A Space Shelter, perhaps enhanced, would also need executives and employees of the public administration as the case of the Lazio healthcare system – hacked in the summer of 2021 – has shown: “Our hope is that, after the emergence of this scandal, the competent authorities have secured the systems, certainly having to witness in 2021 this kind of problems generated by carelessness and incompetence in the public administration is worrying “comments Pierani bitterly.
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