ChildAware is an educational game that aims to raise childrens awareness about three common social engineering attacks: baiting, impersonation, and scareware.
The player receives scenarios while playing a puzzle or a space shooter game. The scenarios are either attack or non-attack. Once the player gets the scenario, the game pauses until the player takes action. The player must distinguish between attack scenarios and non-attack scenarios and then take the appropriate action accordingly. The player gets rewarded when doing a good action. The player is punished when doing a bad action. The player is neither rewarded nor punished when taking an acceptable action. The rewards and the punishments are directly applied when resuming the game.
The game has nine levels: three for each technique of social engineering.
The player must first solve a pre-quiz to measure the level of awareness before playing the game. Upon the player’s expertise in this topic, the player will be assigned to an equivalent level. The app is supported by a chatbot that assists the players in changing the game or modifying its design based on their preferences.