Phishing, Smishing, And Malvertising: A Cyber Security Campaign
The End Result
The purpose of this project was to create a set of characters with in-depth, interesting backstories that helped to explain various threats that are often encountered online and through text messages known as Smishing, Phishing, and Malvertising. Using those characters and backstories, I created a variety of promotional and educational materials that can be used to educate people on the dangers of these online threats.
The Story
In the backstory for this campaign, a group of people from the extremely distant future have successfully figured out how to time travel and subsequently make an attempt to do so. But in doing so they go substantially farther back in time than they intended to, back to medieval times – where, or rather, when, there are dragons terrorizing the people of the time period. In addition to this, their time machine breaks from the massive jump in time periods. Given that they can’t return to their own time period, the time travelers decide to join the medieval population and help them avoid being attacked by the dragons that surround them as well as share their knowledge of technology and the technological resources that survived the jump. Their success in doing this aggravates the dragons and pushes them to do the unimaginable: learn how to infiltrate the population’s newfound technology to try and find weaknesses to exploit so that the dragons can reign supreme once again.
Meet The Characters
Phishing:
This dragon is arguably the most famous of them all, as well as the largest and strongest. He’s also incredibly smart and comes when you’re least expecting him in the form of dangerous links, virus-ridden attachments, and other potentially harmful items hidden in emails that can be easily mistaken as being safe to open and use.
Smishing:
This dragon is the smallest and the easiest to overlook, but he is not to be underestimated. He sneaks into your phone’s text messages via unknown numbers that send messages with links that can allow your device to be tracked or loaded with viruses and other issues. All it takes is one text that looks innocent but is anything but.
Malvertising:
This dragon isn’t the largest or the strongest, but she is the most attention-grabbing. She has the brightest colors and her ultimate goal is to get your attention and trick you into giving her your information and downloading dangerous viruses and software. Getting attention and manipulating users gives her a thrill.
The End Result
Digital Promotional Materials
End Result
The end result of making all of the designs for the educational and promotional content for the cyber security campaign is a set of advertisements, posters, pamphlets, a website, and interesting characters that combine to help educate their audiences on the dangers of Phishing, Smishing, and Malvertising.