This weekend, myself and the rest of the crew from InfoSec Reviews attended the annual Cyber Security Challenge Awards ceremony in Bristol. The event was held at the @Bristol science museum and was a great venue (and the lunch was out of this world). Overall, it was a fantastic day, with an inspiring speech from Baroness Neville-Jones, where she analysed the state of our failing IT curriculum in schools, and especially its impact on the reduced output from universities in the cyber security disciplines (for UK consumption that is). Although Our universities have responded well to the challenge (and the Challenge) encouraging their students of security subjects to have a go at the trials, there is still a long way to go to make sure that the increasing demand for talent in this field is met through formal apprenticeships and university degrees. Interestingly, the majority of prizes went to kids of student age, which of course is a great way to incentivise these young minds into taking the right road down what could be a knife edge if they are not pushed towards the ethical side of hacking.
Next year’s CSCUK promises to be a bigger and better event, with more challenges, more sponsors, and a focus on professionalism and risk management; something they’ve not yet included in the mix.
InfoSec Reviews will be once again offering prizes and next year we intend to supply more books and even some other prizes (yet to be decided). This is one of the most worthwhile security activist groups in the country and we firmly support eveything they are doing for the community at large.
Tony
