Skip to main content

Rayuela gaming marathon Living Lab

The problem
Citizens are not well informed about cyber threats & feel risks are increasing
The solution
A Serious Game to understand the behavioral aspects of cyber criminality
The prototype
Gaming school Marathon to raise awareness and gather data.
The societal actors
Law enforcement agencies, social scientists, computer scientists and enginiers.

Hosted by SALL , contributed by Liakopoulos on 16 December 2022

Understanding the behavioural and developmental aspects of cyber criminality

The internet has become an integral part of children and young people’s lives. The increased time spent online is prompting questions about whether they are in control of their internet usage. The low level of awareness of cyber threats and their potential impact is a serious issue that translates into the proliferation of incidents due to human mistakes. 51% of EU citizens feel not at all or not well informed about cyber threats and 86% of Europeans believe that the risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime is rapidly increasing. On the other hand, Law enforcement has noted that more and more teenagers and young people are increasingly committing cybercrimes. Understanding the behavioural and developmental aspects of cyber criminality is becoming increasingly important and underlies the necessity of a shift in focus from sanctions to deterrence and prevention.

Understing the drivers and human factors affecting certain ways of cybercriminality

The main goal of the RAYUELA Living Lab is to better understand the drivers and human factors affecting certain relevant ways of cybercriminality, as well as empower and educate young people (children and teenagers primarily) in the benefits, risks and threats intrinsically linked to the use of the Internet by playing, thus preventing and mitigating cybercriminal behaviour. Students will also learn how to create scenarios and graphical parts for a computer game.

Cybersecurity and technologies

The project Living Lab brings together law enforcement agencies (LEAs), sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, legal experts, computer scientists and engineers, to develop novel methodologies that allow better understanding the factors affecting online behaviour related to new ways of cyber criminality, as well as promoting the potential of these young talents for cybersecurity and technologies.

Various activities took place

Various activities took place in the RAYUELA Living Lab. Apart from the obvious (playing the 3D Interactive game), students was able to co-create other real-life scenarios that are not already included in the initial version of the game. They also created graphical parts of the game (avatars, school settings etc). Additionally, before and after playing the game, workshops and open dialogue sessions can be implemented, based on the scenarios that are going to be played from the participating students.

Young people’s introduction into cybercrime

Need to promote alternatives, positive ways of channelling young talent toward careers in the tech sector. It is necessary to explore young people’s introduction into cybercrime, which will in turn contribute to foster educational awareness at home and schools.

Powerful video

Help to design and communicate new educational contents and materials in the school, relevant stakeholders and trainers / organisation dealing with cybercrime the message on ‘importance of protection from cybercrime’ visual campaign through a short powerful video with selected young individuals who are willing to talk about their experiences. This will be distributed through social media with information about the project, visually appealing information´s from project outputs.