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The project proposes a catalogue of essential skills that all internet users should have in order to be safe in cyberspace, as well as a tool to measure them.

(Source: REUNA) Nowadays, many activities of daily life such as paperwork, shopping, work, entertainment and even social interactions are carried out via the Internet. However, the fact is that at a population level, there is a significant gap in the knowledge people need to navigate safely in a hyper-connected digital world. This is evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of cybersecurity incidents involve the so-called 'human factor'.

Not only can this problem directly affect individuals, who may fall victim to a phishing or ransomware attack, but it also puts institutions at risk, because no matter how robust their IT defences are, the greatest vulnerability will always lie with users.

With this in mind, REUNA, in collaboration with the University of Valparaíso, the University of Los Lagos and the Chilean Institute of Law and Technology (ICDT), has set out to help raise the level of people's cybersecurity skills on a massive scale, in the hope that this will have a significant impact on reducing incident and victimisation rates nationally and, in the future, internationally.

As Claudia Inostroza, REUNA's Operations and Cybersecurity Manager, explained, "During the strategic planning process carried out with our partners and stakeholders in 2022, one of the most recurring themes and one of the main concerns of the institutions was cybersecurity. In this context, and as part of the REUNA CSIRT's actions, we decided to take up the challenge with an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional team, and to develop a product that will provide a basis for defining training and awareness actions, both for our partners and for the community, and that will promote a culture of cybersecurity".

The result is a Programme of Essential Competences in Cybersecurity (PCEC), which has two main components: the first is a Framework of Essential Competences in Cybersecurity (MCEC), where "essential" is understood as the minimum necessary to develop safely in the digital world, and at the same time as those competences that can reasonably be acquired by any person, regardless of their level of education or age group. The second component concerns the development and validation of an instrument for measuring these competences, which will make it possible to verify and certify that a person has them.

For Lorena Donoso, an academic at the University of Chile and advisor to the ICDT, who has been involved in the development of the PCEC, this project responds to a cross-cutting interest from both public and private actors in improving Chile's level of cybersecurity maturity. "It is no coincidence that the launch of this initiative coincides with the approval in Congress of the new Framework Law on Cybersecurity; on the contrary, it reflects that this is a priority issue for the country, and the Framework of Essential Competences provides tools to advance in the digital transformation of our society," said the IT law expert.

Claudia Saldía, Communication Coordinator of the Integral Training Centre, and Mónica Gallardo, academic from the Department of Exact Sciences and institutional representative of the ULagos before REUNA, pointed out that "the development of the Framework of Essential Competences in Cybersecurity is the first fruit of months of collaborative and cooperative work, developed by an interdisciplinary team with a common focus".

They also emphasised that with this document they wanted to "express how important it is for everyone to know and develop skills that allow them to adapt and face the different challenges of the digital society. For those of us who have been working on digital citizenship training with university students for several years, it has been an enriching task to have a broader view of the main concerns of a digital citizen today, such as cybersecurity".

To download the Cybersecurity Core Competency Programme, click here

To download the Core Competency Framework only, click here.