̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Frank Stajano

UK's best cyber defenders battle for chance to compete with best of the USA

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 14:48:39 +0000

̽��ֱ��victorious team from the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh won the top prize of £6,000, with second place going to the ̽��ֱ�� of Southampton and Imperial College London taking home bronze.

̽��ֱ��winners will now compete with the best of the USA at C2C –‘Cambridge2Cambridge’, a transatlantic contest jointly organised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge to be held between the 29th of June and 1st of July 2018 at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Now in its third year, Inter-ACE was established to help resolve the vast and growing cyber security skills gap, with an estimated shortfall of 1.8 million workers worldwide by 2022. Inter-ACE aims to inspire young tech enthusiasts into the cyber security sector, while also honing the skills of those who already have a strong aptitude for ethical hacking and helping them meet like-minded individuals and potential employers.

Professor Frank Stajano, Founder of Inter-ACE and Professor of Security and Privacy at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “It’s no secret that the cybersecurity industry is suffering from a large and growing skills gap. We must do more to attract a more diverse pool of talent into the field. This is about demonstrating that careers in cybersecurity not only help to keep your country, your friends and your family safe, but are varied, valued and most of all fun.

“There is still much more to be achieved, but I have been delighted over the last three years to be welcoming a growing number of female participants and contestants from increasingly diverse backgrounds to the two-day competition. We had 18 women competing this year, as opposed to just two when we started! It's working. There is no set profile for a cybersecurity professional and Inter-ACE contributes to reaching more people with that important message.”

Nick L, a student from the winning team at the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh said “For people out there thinking about getting into cybersecurity and sitting on the fence, get yourself into a cybersecurity competition. Chances are the first one might not go so great, but you’ll get there and learn a lot. That’s exactly how we started out.”

Inter-ACE 2018 involved a number of different scenarios, including preventing a hack on a UK city’s infrastructure and a tap on an undersea communications cable. Connected devices such as a children’s toy were also used to demonstrate the impact of hacking techniques. ̽��ֱ��two-day event featured over 20 challenges in total, set by experts from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and sponsors including Context IS and Palo Alto Networks.

Established through the UK’s National Cyber Security Strategy and supported by GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, Inter-ACE is sponsored by Microsoft, BT, Palo Alto and Context IS.

̽��ֱ��18 universities that participated in this year’s Inter-ACE were Queen’s ̽��ֱ�� Belfast, the ̽��ֱ�� of Birmingham, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Cardiff ̽��ֱ��, De Montfort ̽��ֱ��, the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier ̽��ֱ��, Imperial College London, the ̽��ֱ�� of Kent, Lancaster ̽��ֱ��, Newcastle ̽��ֱ��, the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, Royal Holloway ̽��ֱ�� of London, the ̽��ֱ�� of Southampton, the ̽��ֱ�� of Surrey, ̽��ֱ�� College London, the ̽��ֱ�� of Warwick and the ̽��ֱ�� of York.

More than 130 students representing 18 of the UK’s top cybersecurity universities battled it out at the Inter-ACE 2018 cybersecurity challenge, hosted by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��competition, supported by GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, and designed to attract the next generation of cybersecurity talent took place over two days on the 16th and 17th of March 2018.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Cambridge to host transatlantic cyber security competition

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 08:55:49 +0000

̽��ֱ��“Cambridge2Cambridge” cyber security competition, backed by government and industry, is the brainchild of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, and will see talented students pitted against each other in a three-day showdown.

In total, 110 students from 25 universities from the UK and USA will form mixed transatlantic teams and battle against a fictional rogue state in the life-like cyber security competition backed by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and Cabinet Office.

̽��ֱ��annual event is now in its second year with prize money up for grabs for the winners. It will be held from 24-26 July at Trinity College, Cambridge.

With major cyber-attacks on the increase, according to the NCSC, the need for cyber security experts is more important than ever before.

Professor Frank Stajano, Head of the Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research at Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory and the co-founder of Cambridge2Cambridge, said that the competition has been designed to promote greater cyber security collaboration between the UK and USA, and to give students the platform to explore creative ways to combat global cyber-attacks.

“ ̽��ֱ��aim of the competition is also to bring together different individuals in a fun and inclusive environment, where they can apply their cyber security abilities in a collaborative and competitive setting, allowing students to implement the skills they have been taught, while learning new ones in the process,” he said.

It also gives budding cyber enthusiasts the opportunity to meet like-minded individuals, and learn more about careers in the sector by introducing them to key players in the industry and government.

https://cambridge2cambridge.csail.mit.edu/

A major cyber security challenge, aimed at educating and inspiring the next generation of cyber defenders from across the UK and US, will be held at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge next week.

̽��ֱ��aim of the competition is to bring together different individuals in a fun and inclusive environment, where they can apply their cyber security abilities in a collaborative and competitive setting.

Frank Stajano

Inter-ACE Cyber Challenge 2017

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

UK’s top student hackers compete for cyber security

sc604 — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 11:08:10 +0000

̽��ֱ��best student hackers in the UK will take place in a cyber security competition this weekend, in order to demonstrate and improve their skills both as attackers and defenders in scenarios similar to the TalkTalk hack and the leak of the Panama Papers.

̽��ֱ��event, hosted by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in partnership with Facebook, will bring together 10 of the UK’s Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Research – the first time they have taken part in such an event together. ̽��ֱ��hacking event will take place on Saturday, 23 April.

Cyber security is considered one of the biggest threats facing our economy and infrastructure today, and talented hackers are being recruited by government and other agencies to fight cyber criminals. This hacking event will showcase the best student hackers in the country.

̽��ֱ��students will be working on challenges which require them to exploit some common vulnerabilities - the very type that underpinned recent high-profile hacking incidents.

Each of the 10 universities is sending a team of four students to this ‘Capture the Flag’-themed event. Throughout the afternoon, the hackers will attempt to solve a series of puzzles, with the winners gaining points; and compete in a series of challenges by attempting to hack the other teams.

An example of the type of challenges the hackers may face is to hack into a server and attempt to keep the other teams from getting in for as long as they can. ̽��ֱ��Panama Papers hack likely involved exploiting vulnerabilities in Wordpress and Drupal and the competitors may be tasked with finding similar holes in other software.

Facebook has chosen to visualise the progress of the game on a board loosely based on the classic game Risk. ̽��ֱ��goal is to conquer the world, with points awarded for each country that is captured. Each country has a couple of challenges based on different areas of cyber security, and students must be able to extract the ‘flag’ to claim the points for that country.

In addition to the teams taking part in the event in Cambridge, other students from the participating universities will also be able to take part in the event remotely, in order that additional students can polish their hacking skills.

“We have a huge cyber security skills gap looming in the UK, and we need to close it,” said Dr Frank Stajano of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, Head of the Cambridge Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research. “Training our students for those challenges closes the gap between theory and practice in cyber security education. With any type of security, you can’t develop a strong defence against these types of attacks if you’re not a good attacker yourself – you need to stay one step ahead of the criminals.”

These hacking events also help highlight the different challenges involved in attack and defence. “Attacking is more difficult in general because there is no guaranteed recipe for finding a vulnerability, but in many ways it’s actually easier,” he said. “If you’re defending something, you have to keep absolutely everything safe all the time, but if you’re attacking, all you’ve got to do is find the one weak point and then you’re in – like finding the one weak point in the Death Star that allowed it to be destroyed. When attackers and defenders run on similar platforms it is also the case that, if you attack your opponents, they may reverse-engineer your attack and reuse it against you.”

In a meeting last year, Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama agreed to strengthen the ties between the UK and the US, and to cooperate on matters of cyber security affecting both countries.

A ‘Cambridge 2 Cambridge’ cyber security competition, held last month at MIT, was one of the outcomes of the meeting between the two leaders, who also expressed a desire that part of this cooperation should include an improvement in cyber security teaching and training for students.

From next year, some of the exercises prepared for these events will be part of the undergraduate teaching programme at Cambridge.

“Our team was able to gel well together, and that feeling of being ‘in the zone’ and working seamlessly together in attacking other teams, scripting our exploits and rushing to patch our services was fantastic,” said computer science undergraduate Daniel Wong, following last month’s Cambridge 2 Cambridge event.

“Maybe somewhat surprisingly for a computer hacking competition, the Cambridge 2 Cambridge event was also an exercise in interpersonal skills, since effectively collaborating with people you have just met under significant time pressure in a generally stressful environment does not come naturally, but I was very fortunate to have had teammates that really made this aspect feel like a walk in the park,” said fellow computer science undergraduate Gábor Szarka, a co-winner of the $15,000 top team prize at the Cambridge 2 Cambridge event.

̽��ֱ��Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR) scheme is sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, Government Communications Headquarters, the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance and Research Councils UK.

̽��ֱ��10 universities sending a team to Saturday’s event are: Imperial College London, Queens ̽��ֱ�� Belfast, Royal Holloway ̽��ֱ�� of London, ̽��ֱ�� College London, ̽��ֱ�� of Birmingham, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, ̽��ֱ�� of Kent, ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, ̽��ֱ�� of Southampton, and ̽��ֱ�� of Surrey.

Students from the UK’s top cyber security universities will compete in Cambridge this weekend, in part to address the country’s looming cyber security skills gap.

We have a huge cyber security skills gap looming in the UK, and we need to close it.

Frank Stajano

Colin via Wikimedia Commons

A backlit laptop computer keyboard

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution-ShareAlike