The Media Department of the al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine organizes a symposium on information security and electronic extortion

The Media Department of the al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine organized a specialized symposium on information security and electronic extortion, presented by a number of academics specialized in digital security in addition to officers in the National Security Apparatus. It was attended by a number of members of the Holy Shrine's board of directors, heads of its departments, officials of its divisions, and a group of its employees.

The symposium was organized by the department’s media training center, in view of the urgent need for awareness and culture in digital security, and the impact of the phenomenon of electronic extortion on societal peace, and the resulting moral and material damage in light of the growth of chat programs and social media and the increase in the number of their users.

The Associate Head of the Media Department of the al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine, Mr Ali al-Badri, told Al-Kafeel Network, "This symposium is the first specialized symposium that revolves around these topics, which are among the important societal issues in Iraqi society, as it will focus on information security and virtual personal security. And this symposium will be followed by a series of workshops and seminars to all employees of the al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine, in a bid to secure them and the community and spread a culture of information security that many are ignorant of its dangers, which have begun to afflict the community and threaten its family and societal entity."

He added, "The symposium included several topics, the most important of which were: types of cybercrime, means of protection against hacking and electronic extortion, electronic flies, and rumours. It showed the methods of awareness and how to spread the concept of awareness culture in the use of social networking sites, as well as showing the role of the family in socialization and building a sound relationship between parents and their children, based on frankness and dialogue to remedy the problems of extortion that children may fall into.”

And al-Badri said: "We hope that such seminars will contribute to immunizing the participants from the phenomenon of electronic extortion, which is witnessing a wide spread in light of the rapid technological development, and the means to protect personal data and accounts and ways to secure them."

For his part, Lt. Colonel Muhammad al-Shammari, Director of the Training and Security Development Department at the Babylon Police Directorate, added: "A good gesture and initiative by the al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine to held this symposium, as the subject is dangerous and important, as we tried to provide the information in a way that makes the participants aware of the dangers facing them, able to balance matters with the scales of criticism, analysis and scrutiny, to become aware and clever in their dealings, immunized against destructive practices, ideas and behaviors.