Lafarge Asia Sdn. Bhd. throws dice with IMC

London/Kuala Lumpur, January 2011 – Data protection and IT security is becoming the main priority in almost all companies. Besides deliberate misuse, it is however, above all, the ignorance and carelessness of the staff in handling data that costs money and image in the end.  Lafarge Asia Sdn. Bhd., a division of the leading global building materials manufacturer, has therefore launched the “IT Information Security Awareness Program” (ITAP) campaign. Around 8000 employees will receive training developed by IMC and, as a special bonus, our custom-designed board game called “Jungle Game”. A Planning & Governance staff who is also a CISM member at Lafarge Asia Sdn. Bhd. is coordinating the campaign from the headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: “By adopting this approach we will sensitise our staff in the importance of IT security. In addition, we will show our staff how they can avoid the risks and what to do in an emergency. The board game was a decisive door-opener”. In the next step, a Web Based Training (WBT) will further increase awareness.

Careless clicking on emails from an unknown source, confidential documents going to the communal printer, careless handling of passwords, unlocked screens when leaving the office, - many companies contend with such inattentiveness from their staff.

With the training offensive designed and implemented by IMC, Lafarge Asia Sdn. Bhd. is now taking a new approach.   One particular challenge was the different learning cultures in the relevant Lafarge regions within Asia. Whilst Chinese employees attach great importance to written information, Indian and Philippine representatives cherish verbal exchange in group discussions.  Other nations, on the other hand, accept both forms of teaching, but, for the most part, have to be motivated to share their experiences with others.  It is exactly this point that IMC has addressed.

No barrier for anyone and one way for everyone
“We have devised a multi-level concept in order to include all those involved”, explains Dr. Kathrin Bergenthal, Director of Content Services at IMC. “In a half-day face-to-face training, Lafarge employees were informed about the background of the campaign; they could test the game, debate selected security aspects in a group setting and then discuss the results. Thus, everyone gained access to the learning objective.”

Particular interest was aroused in the DIN A2 “Jungle Game”, in which two to six players play using a dice.  In total, 100 questions on IT security are formulated on quiz and duel cards. Five points are gained for each correct answer; the winner is the person who is the first to collect 20 points or gold coins. “The approach of packing technical issues into an emotional game has proved very successful for achieving the learning objectives.”, clarifies Bergenthal. When designing the game, the content team at IMC were inspired by the typically tropical jungle of the region: mosquitoes and leeches represent computer viruses and worms, rain clouds establish a connection to Cloud Computing, cobwebs illustrate weaknesses in IT networks and a bus trip in the jungle emphasizes “Shoulder surfing”, the spying of screen contents “over the shoulder” of the user.    

 
The game has been released in the original English version, but also in Japanese, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese and Indonesian, as well as Mandarin.  “We have tackled the technical challenges with a lot of creativity and thereby the intercultural differences of the target groups are taken into consideration in a methodical and didactic manner, in such a way that the overall concept can be applied throughout the entire Asian region".