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NCC Group sowing the seeds of disruption in the cyber security industry

Are you what the boffs are looking for?

Competition It's 2015, the cyber attacks keep on coming, and the bad guys appear to be winning – some may argue this is because devastating data breaches are more newsworthy than businesses upping their security defences. We see a relentless battle between businesses trying to protect themselves and those with malicious intent attacking corporate systems to cause damage or steal information.

The need for robust security is obvious and no-one can rest on their laurels. But to stay ahead of the bad guys, the cyber security industry needs to inject new ideas into the mix now and again – and that means getting talented students and security “amateurs” to consider a career in this sector.

Global cyber security heavyweight NCC Group has designed The Cyber 10K competition specifically to spark new ideas, generate new solutions to combat malicious threats and encourage people to join the industry.

Professor Tim Watson, director of the cyber security centre at the University of Warwick, said: “The nature of this industry means that the ‘good guys’ must advance at the same rate, if not quicker, than those trying to cause harm if we are going to protect both consumers and businesses."

“It’s important that we have a fresh view of the threats we face and it’s often new blood and the younger generations who can offer these new perspectives. That’s why competitions like Cyber 10K are so important – they provide an incentive for security amateurs to think critically about issues and develop real-life effective solutions to the problems we are facing.”

Cyber 10K is a superb opportunity for students and security "amateurs” to test their security chops. Entrants are asked to devise a proof of concept and the winning contestant receives £10,000 and expert advice from NCC Group to develop their own security solution. The competition closes for entries on 30 November – so hop to it! Details below:

Entry criteria

  • Description of the problem you are trying to solve.
  • Description of your solution and how it addresses the problem.
  • In addition to the above for an entry to qualify you must include a working prototype – a functional solution which can be used to demonstrate the idea in a reliable manner that accurately shows the idea working.
  • It is recommended that you also include: a video of no more than five minutes, summarising the problem and solution, including a demo Design documentation for the solution

Categories

  • There are no strict categories. Anything goes as long as it hits the entry criteria, but some areas that you might want to think about include: cloud security, cyber incident response and clean-up, IoT and mobile security, consumer and user awareness, training and support, and cyber security on small budgets

The judging panel includes the following experts:

  • John Leyden, security reporter, The Register
  • Professor Steve Schneider, director, Surrey Centre for Cyber Security
  • Professor Tim Watson, director at University of Warwick’s cyber security centre
  • Alex van Someren, managing partner at Amadeus Capital Partners
  • Paul Vlissidis, director of the .trust division at NCC Group

The Register is a media partner of Cyber 10K. ®

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