National Cyber Security Centre Pushes 'Three Random Words' Message in Cyber Aware Campaign

The National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of GCHQ, is launching the latest part of a major new campaign which aims to help keep people safe online. The push was developed in partnership with creative agency M&C Saatchi London.

The wide-reaching government Cyber Aware campaign, which is running across broadcast, online and out-of-home with almost 2,000 billboard placements, aims to raise awareness of things we can all do to ensure that our email security is significantly better protected.

Opportunistic criminals are now taking advantage of more people using digital devices than ever before with scams that can lead to accounts being hacked. Last year saw a 161% increase in unauthorized access to personal information offences – including hacking.

The latest burst of the new campaign recommends that consumers and small businesses take their email security to another level by advising them to use passwords made up of three random words. The advice aims to help create strong passwords that are easy enough to remember but hard for criminals to guess.

The integrated push is brought to life through humorous scenarios in unexpected places to create memorability. We see an interesting mix of unique, yet approachable characters, that provide clear advice on how we can all make our email passwords harder to hack.

The two new films, directed with dry wit by Luc Schurgers at HunkyDory Films, use visual metaphors to make the ‘choose three random words’ message impossible to forget.

Campaign activity includes digital, radio, social, web and online advertising. Media planning is managed by Bountiful Cow and media buying is by OmniGov.

Alastair C, deputy director for strategic communications, National Cyber Security Centre, said: “Securing your email account is vital for staying safe online as it is the gateway to so much of our personal information, from work life to finances, and even to our other accounts.

“By creating a strong password using three random words, and enabling two-step verification on your account, individuals can significantly reduce the chances of their email being compromised.

“This new campaign delivers a serious message in a distinctive and memorable way, urging everyone to follow the Cyber Aware advice to make life even harder for criminals.”

Guy Bradbury, creative partner, M&C Saatchi London, added: “Changing your email password, to protect yourself from cyber-attacks, is not always top of the list of things to do. So, from a creative perspective we had to do two things to encourage people to change behaviour.

“Firstly, we had to give people a simple solution. Then secondly, we had to make the solution impossible to forget, visually reminding people of the behaviour we want them to adopt.”