About the Carnival

Project

"It was a creative masterpiece!"

The Notre Dame Cybersecurity Carnival presented by Google was designed and hosted by the Office of Information Technology on Tuesday, October 4, 2022 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

The carnival featured home-grown cybersecurity games, activities, prizes, comedy sketch show, and other treats. More than 1,000 students, staff, and faculty attended the event.

This entire event was funded with corporate sponsorships, creating opportunities to connect selected vendors with students to discuss internships and careers in cybersecurity, as well as the University community to explore best practices and industry trends.

Why a Carnival?

The goal of this event was to educate students, staff, and faculty about cybersecurity topics from passwords and privacy to scams and securing their devices. Cybersecurity has become one of the greatest concerns for any institution. Many information security efforts are invisible to the public and our constituents, such as threat detection on our networks or designing systems to mitigate security risks. However, end users - individuals like all of us - often pose the greatest threats through inadvertent action. The Cybersecurity Carnival was intended to create a highly visible, public-friendly, and attractive way of educating and promoting best practices.

Key Learning Objectives

• Password quality
• Password managers
• Recognizing phishing/scams
• Managing privacy
• Securing home network/devices

Project Core Team

• Leilani Lauger, project sponsor
• Elizabeth Lankford, project manager
• Casey Kiel
• Cassie McCan
• Emily Scott
• Ian Washburn
• Kolin Hodgson
• Lauren Freda
• Lenette Votava
• Chas Grundy

Results

All attendees were entered to win from several prizes, requiring them to scan their University IDs or log in. This provided reliable data on attendees and enabled our team to analyze the audience and survey them for post-event outcomes. Of the 1,011 attendees, 121 completed the survey.

Quick Stats

96% would recommend this event to a friend or colleague

43% Students

57% Staff and Faculty

Favorite attractions

• Museum of Mishaps
• Lockpicking
• Slam the Spam

Praise for the Event

• "I appreciate the effort Notre Dame is willing to put into informing students and employees about cybersecurity!"

• "The awareness that cybersecurity is actually important in everyday life, not just a nuisance."

• "You've set the bar high for campus events - it was amazing and fun. Kudos to the planning team."

• "Thank you so much for all of your work and efforts. This was REALLY, REALLY great!"

• "This carnival was LEGIT. I was blown away by the "room decor (e.g. tents, signs, balloons, etc.)," hall of mishaps, game design, etc. There's NO WAY our team could pull off something similar with such pizazz and authenticity. Very, very well done!"

• "Great job! I love the way that the OIT team engages us with fun learning!"

• "The event was absolutely one of the most fun, while being informative events that I have attended in my 10 years here at Notre Dame. You can tell that a lot of work went into this event. Our office (admins and Mgr.) went together and we had a great time! Thanks for putting this on!"

• "It was a true amusement show - an all around, well planned/organized event! Phenomenal!"

Resources

Security Night Live: Cybersecurity Training People Actually Want to Attend

OIT staff Elizabeth Lankford and Chas Grundy, along with Chris Daugherty from Google, presented the carnival at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference on October 26, 2022. The presentation included a mini-carnival experience with several booths, games, music, and prizes.