Social

• Increasing awareness of cybersecurity
• Creating and developing IT personnel
• Diversity-related initiatives
• Workstyle Reform and Health and Productivity Management

Increasing awareness of cybersecurity

As cybersecurity professionals, LAC not only protects our customers against cybercrimes that cause information leaks and other damages, we also actively engage in social activities to realize a safer and more secure society.

Expanding Japan's cybersecurity base

LAC's stance on awareness-raising activities

CYBER GRID Japan supports organized activities in local communities to ensure the safe and secure use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) throughout Japan. We are working on expanding the scope of awareness-raising activities by having our expert instructors conduct lectures at local educational institutions, and by publishing a booklet summarizing that knowledge and distributing it to local communities.

Furthermore, our final goal is to promote the GridEncouragement concept, which actively supports the establishment of structures and organizations where local communities autonomously contribute to the enhancement of citizens' information literacy, through these initiatives.

We are always exploring what support we can provide from the perspective of local communities and users and what steps we should take to realize the concept, and developing activity themes based on those explorations.

Main initiatives

LAC not only engaged in protecting specific organizations, we are also committed to awareness-raising activities aimed at realizing "participation by all in cybersecurity" so that each individual can improve their awareness of how to use the Internet and how to handle devices. The core of these initiatives are industry-academia collaboration and awareness-raising activities in local communities. In FY2023, we carried out more than 200 awareness-raising activities including lectures and events.

Development of human resources by industry-academia collaboration

We continuously held lectures and seminars on information-related laws, ethics and information security as part of classes at elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools and universities in each region, and worked on exploring and developing new ways of learning in collaboration with local communities.

As part of those initiatives, in FY2023, we supported the studies of approximately twenty students at Hamamatsu Municipal Sakuma Junior High School in Shizuoka Prefecture in a lecture on how to utilize ICT for advertising attractive points and solving community problems from the perspective of data science. This initiative was implemented following a lecture on video production in FY2021, as one terminal was provided to each student under the GIGA School Program.

At a seminar studying roles of local media in the Faculty of Media Studies, Mejiro University, we are continuing an initiative for the utilization of ICT for local problem-solving with various themes. In FY2023, we held an online exchange meeting with students at Muikaichi Junior High School in Yoshika Town, Shimane Prefecture. In this meeting, junior high school students made presentations on local studies, and university students provided advice and made comments. Also, based on the presentations given by the junior high school students, the university students conducted a lecture on information literacy that they wanted to share with the junior high school students. At Japan Women's University, we have been continuing lectures on information security since FY2020 for information science students.

Support for awareness-raising activities in the community

Starting with the police headquarters of prefectures, we have concluded agreements with regional cybersecurity organizations to support security education and awareness-raising activities in the community through industry-academia-government collaboration.

In Nagasaki Prefecture, high school and college of technology student volunteers are trained in cooperation with the Cybercrime Division of the Prefectural Police Headquarters. These student volunteers then give awareness-raising lectures at the elementary and junior high schools they graduated from, which not only improves information literacy, but also serves as a learning experience for the students themselves.

In FY2023, we started a specific training initiative for high school, technical college and vocational school students for fostering cybersecurity volunteers in cooperation with the Nara Prefectural Police.

Awareness-raising activities by community visits

In cooperation with the Shimane Prefecture Board of Education, we have been making visits to conduct lectures on information ethics for elementary and junior high schools and local officials in Masuda City, Yoshika Town, and Tsuwano Town since FY2016. Also, since FY2013, we have overseen consumer life lecture tours (in the information field) given in the spring and fall at the Nayoro City Consumer Affairs Center in Hokkaido to elementary and junior high schools in the city. Furthermore, we have been conducting workshops on information security, information ethics, and information literacy for citizens and Nayoro Police Department officers.

Publication of Cybersecurity Booklets

In 2019, we published Compass for Awareness of Information Literacy, a booklet summarizing to what extent people need to master capabilities to utilize digital technologies in the cyber space by generation and position. In January 2024, we updated the Information Utilization section to Ver. 2.0 in which the use of generative AI was added as a new item.

In February 2022, we published Cybersecurity Job File 1, which aims to familiarize elementary and junior high school students who will lead the next generation with cybersecurity, and distributed more than 20,000 copies in total (as of March 2024). We published a combined edition of the two booklets in one volume with an additional glossary in November 2023. We are continuously working on this initiative so that people of all ages can be more interested in jobs in the cybersecurity field.

Moreover, in FY2023, we published a commemorative issue of CYBER GRID JOURNAL, a report for corporate managers summarizing up-to-date information obtained through research and survey activities by CYBER GRID Japan. This edition commemorated the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the research division.

Creating and developing IT personnel

Leveraging our knowledge as a leading cybersecurity company, we are working to create and develop talented IT personnel who will bear responsibility for the IT society of the future by developing younger personnel and operating the secretariat of security organizations.

Developing advanced IT personnel who will lead the next generation

The environment surrounding IT is changing rapidly, and developing excellent personnel who can lead the next-generation IT society is an urgent issue. In addition to supporting training through various security organizations, LAC is actively engaged in finding and developing young IT personnel on our own.

Support for the secretariat and operation of security organizations

To raise awareness of cybersecurity and contribute to the development of specialized human resources, we provide operational support to the secretariats of security-related organizations in coordination and collaboration with many different companies and organizations.

In addition to contributing to national information security policy through coordination with government organizations such as the National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) and the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA), we continue to contribute to invigoration of the information security field through coordination and collaboration with a wide range of security-related organizations.

We have been involved in CSIJ, which consists of a group of cybersecurity professionals, as a managing company since its foundation, and have carried out activities to help improve the level of cybersecurity measures. In addition, we have a long history of supporting security organizations throughout Japan, such as in the establishment and operation of Grafsec, where local organizations mutually cooperate with each other to promote cybersecurity awareness in the community.

Diversity-related initiatives

We are working to create an environment and organization where members of our diverse workforce can play active roles, regardless of factors such as race, gender, or age. We have tackled a variety of initiatives, such as promoting participation in the workforce by women and people with disabilities and establishing a starting salary system that does not differentiate between employees based on their academic records.

Promoting women's participation in the workplace

Aiming to create an environment in which people can continue to work, we are making efforts to enable employees to work at various regional offices and other locations by utilizing IT environments that allow teleworking when employees need to move to remote areas for various reasons, such as family relocation. In FY2023, the return-to-work rate for female employees after parental leave reached 100%, and the ratio of male employees taking parental leave was 57.1%, a significant increase from 37.5% in the previous fiscal year and well over the national average^* of 17.13%.

In FY2023, women took 12.2% of managerial positions in LAC (non-consolidated basis). We are continuing our initiatives to increase the ratio of female managers.

* Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, "Basic Survey of Gender Equality in Employment Management 2022 (Survey of Establishments)"

Promoting participation in the workplace by people with disabilities

As part of our activities to promote participation in the workplace by diverse human resources, we are actively working on the promotion of employment of people with disabilities. LAC has many human resources who have professional knowledge and skills, including employees with disabilities who are working equally with other employees as engineers or researchers in the technological division and staff in the indirect division.

Visually impaired employees in the research division have been playing an active part as security engineers for many years in spite of their disabilities, and some of them have won the Prime Minister's Encouragement Award 2018. An employee with disabilities who has been actively working for many years as a member of the recruitment staff is also leveraging the employee's own experience and knowledge for external activities, including lectures and workshops on employment and job seeking support for people with disabilities. LAC also established a relaxation room with two visually impaired massagers to both promote employees' health and help with the employment of people with disabilities.

LAC is providing an environment where people with disabilities can realize their full potential and building a corporate culture to respect diversity. Striving to have people with disabilities participate in the workplace is one of our important initiatives, and we will continue doing so actively.

Workstyle Reform and Health and Productivity Management

Aiming to create a work environment that allows employees to work efficiently and flexibly while maintaining a work-life balance, we are promoting teleworking and expanding benefit packages while listening to input from our employees and promoting health and productivity management.

Understanding of workstyle reform and our guidelines for activities

In order to make a company where employees are satisfied with work and can continue growing, LAC has been actively working on workstyle reform from FY2017 under the support of Cross-River Co., Ltd., a workstyle reform consulting company. We focus on creating an environment where each and every employee can enjoy changes and can grow while practicing workstyle reform, and we are implementing flexible initiatives to respect the work-life balance. As part of them, we established the "Ten Items to Keep in Mind for Workstyle Reform" for the management and employees to take specific actions for workstyle reform.

In order to achieve a work-life balance according to the life stage and to work efficiently, we are promoting teleworking that enables people to use time and locations effectively and to work in diverse ways. We are working on the creation of an environment where people can work flexibly by establishing satellite offices, as well as working from home.

LAC is providing an environment where people with disabilities can realize their full potential and building a corporate culture to respect diversity. Striving to have people with disabilities participate in the workplace is one of our important initiatives, and we will continue doing so actively.

Promotion of Health and Productivity Management

In March 2023, in recognition of those activities, LAC was certified as a Health and Productivity Management Organization, which is a program by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. We will continue striving to create an environment where people can work comfortably to drive the growth of LAC.