The 3rd annual Global Security Week will run from September 3rd to 9th 2007 with this year’s theme being “Privacy in the 21st Century”.  The theme this year is intended to highlight how individuals and companies can better protect personal information that is not only stored online and on various different computer systems, such as mobile computing devices, portable storage devices, and multiple types of servers, but also on printed paper as well as through discussions about confidential matters in public locations, and any other way in which personal information is stored or shared. 

The aim of Global Security Week is to provide information and impetus to help coordinate security awareness activities around the globe and raise the public’s awareness about security.  The concept of a Global Security Week is simple yet vitally important. The intention of a security week is to coordinate and encourage a wide variety of security-related awareness activities and events worldwide during that week.

Global Security Week is a voluntary public awareness initiative, not a commercial or political venture.  By raising awareness, Global Security Week broadly addresses security:

1. All Internet users are part of a global community and mutually dependent on each other.  It is in everyone’s interest to secure their own computer systems and be a good neighbour on the web.  We all face the threats of spam, malware, phishing, hackers, intellectual property theft, cyber-terrorism, cyber-extortion and fraud.  All of us need to take responsibility for implementing suitable information security measures to protect privacy and to avoid being part of the problem.
2. Recent terrorist atrocities graphically remind us of our shared reliance on physical as well as information security.  We must all remain alert for unattended packages, suspicious behaviour and so forth.
3. Bombs and natural disasters (such as the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina) are relatively indiscriminate, impacting individuals and organisations that were simply doing normal business in a place and time of a major event. Knowing what to do, if not actually being prepared for such situations can literally make the difference between life and death for people, and survival or bankruptcy for corporations.

“This year’s theme is very topical,” said Gary Hinson, founder of Global Security Week. “In this day and age, privacy and security of our personal information are seriously threatened. Governments and businesses are gathering and cross-matching more and more data about us.  News of security breaches revealing personal data hits the headlines almost every day.  Global Security Week can help not just by raising awareness of the risk but by providing practical advice on how to minimize it.” 

Those interested in participating in Global Security Week are asked to register at http://www.globalsecurityweek.com. Involvement is welcomed from individuals, groups or companies wishing to participate by organising security awareness activities during the week, and encouraging links to the global campaign using free promotional images.  Global Security Week will gladly promote these activities on the Global Security Week website free of charge.

Logo Competition
In conjunction with the launch of this year’s theme “Privacy in the 21st Century”, Global Security Week is running a competition to select a suitable logo to promote Global Security Week throughout the Internet on the Global Security Week website, on websites of participating organisations, on ‘banner advertisements’ and in print through the security and general news media. Entrants are invited to submit up to three logo designs that represent the spirit, essence and importance of why privacy must be protected by Friday the 20th of July 2007 in accordance with the competition rules published online at:

http://www.GlobalSecurityWeek.com/html/logo.html 

The prize for the winning logo will be a $100 Amazon.com gift voucher.

About Global Security Week

Global Security Week is a global security awareness initiative in the week leading up to September 11th every year. The idea is simply to coordinate and encourage a wide variety of security-related awareness activities worldwide in that week, taking advantage of the obvious focus on security by the world’s media. This is a public awareness initiative, not a commercial or political venture. Its long-term aim is to become the focal point for security awareness activities in years to come.

The theme for this year’s Global Security Week is “Privacy in the 21st Century”. During Global Security Week a number of events, workshops and awareness raising activities will take place worldwide to educate, inform and better prepare people to protect their privacy and companies to better secure the personal information entrusted to them by their customers.

Against a backdrop of global terrorism and organised crime, security in general, and information security in particular, has become a vitally-important sociological and business issue.  Commercial and governmental organisations are investing heavily in technical security controls but the security problems caused by people remain largely unaddressed.

Whilst responsible businesses and individuals employ a wide range of security measures, the global Internet community suffers as a result of those irresponsible businesses and home users who remain largely unaware of security.  Hackers and spammers frequently take control of insecure Internet-connected systems, for example, to use as platforms for their attacks. Raising the general level of security awareness is the only feasible means of addressing this issue.