How do you make a presentation on Cyber Resilience meaningful in a community that has just experienced a catastrophic flood event and people are still reeling from losing their homes, their possessions and, in some cases, their loved ones?

Team Leader of IDCARE’s Cyber Resilience Outreach Clinics, Jason Corbett, was invited to speak at Ipswich District Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) meeting on 10 March 2022. The reason for his visit was in preparation for the planned CROC in Ipswich later in the year. 

Less than a few weeks had passed since this community was impacted by life-threatening flash flooding.

Jason stood in front of the NHW Executive members and began to explain how the driving tenet behind the CROC was to build resilience in regional communities.  Suddenly, he stopped talking.  The significance of where he was and what this community had just been through was overwhelming.

“I took a breath and decided to take in my surroundings,” Jason said.

“Our meeting was being held in aback room of the Yamanto Police Complex.  It was a temporary setup, a smaller cordoned off section of what had been the major incident room used during the response to the flood crisis.  I refocused my attention on the computers, tables and chairs that had been part of the physical tools in the response to this crisis. 

“I then looked at the faces of NHW members that were surrounding me in a semi-circle.  When it suddenly dawned on me, they had struggled through the flood, no doubt some feeling its full impact.  And they still had the time and energy to come along to this meeting.  These special people were putting their community first and trying to make it resilient to crime, whether physical or online…I was preaching to the choir.”

Cybercriminals have no empathy and while one would like to hope they would divert their attention from a community that has been through so much, experience has taught us this is not the case. In fact, cybercriminals appear to specifically target people who have been through some kind of disaster as their attention is focused elsewhere. By creating awareness and resilience around cybercrime, we hope to insulate this community from any further loss.

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