Cyber Wardens: Making cyber security simple for small businesses
The Challenge
Small businesses make up 97% of all Australian businesses, and they are cyber crime's easiest target. Most owners have no IT team, no security budget and no clear idea where to start. The average attack costs a small business $56,600, and many never recover. The risk does not stop at the front door: small businesses supply large ones, so an unprotected SME becomes a weak link in a national supply chain. Cyber Wardens was built on a simple idea. Cyber security does not need to be technical to be effective. Give owners and their staff free, plain-language training and you turn 2.3 million small businesses from the softest target into the first line of defence.
Our REsponse
89 Degrees East delivered Cyber Wardens end to end with the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA). We built the free eLearning platform and course, designed the brand and campaign creative, and ran the digital marketing, social media and national media campaigns that drove enrolments and graduations. Ongoing delivery covers webinars, EDMs, social and the Cyber Wardens community, with Telstra, CommBank and government backing behind the programme.
A free, self-paced cyber security course and eLearning platform at cyberwardens.com.au, a national media and social campaign, a live webinar program, The Shield newsletter, and a tiered partnership offer that brings corporate and government supporters into the programme.
36,200+ small business graduates and 53,300+ enrolments across 22,600+ small businesses. The Cyber Wardens community now reaches 60,000+ people. The national media campaign generated over 2,000 media stories and mentions, reaching 14M+ through news media and 48M through social. Industry bodies including Master Builders Australia, Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, the Australian Traditional-Medicine Society and the Australian Institute of CPD Standards now direct their members to the training.
Insights
Cyber security education works when it stops sounding like cyber security. The program's reach came from framing protection as ordinary business practice, not an IT project, and removing every barrier to getting started: no cost, no jargon, no prerequisites. That approach helped Cyber Wardens build a community of more than 60,000 small business owners and employees. The lasting value sits beyond the training itself. A small business that builds stronger cyber habits becomes a safer supplier, reducing risk for every larger organisation it works with. Resilience built at the smallest end of the economy strengthens the wider business community.
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