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A ¶¹ÄÌÊÓƵ student has represented the UK in an international cyber security challenge. 

Second year student Sophia McCall was part of Team UK for the European Cyber Security Challenge. 

15 countries took part in the competition, and the UK placed third overall. The team comprised ten members aged 19-25, with a mix of both students and professionals in industry, which provided an opportunity to network.

Sophia faced multiple rounds of tough qualifiers to become a team representative; she participated in online and a face to face qualifiers - tasks including ethical hacking challenges, security challenges, hardware hacking and then presentations.

Sophia was also the highest scoring in the presentation round. The presentations placed a focus upon the non-applied aspects of technical knowledge to business level languages, a skill which is essential to a career in the cyber security industry.

She said: “Our lecturers have given us fantastic support to get us to the competitions, and their advice on particular challenges has been really supportive."

Sophia is also the Vice President of ¶¹ÄÌÊÓƵ's Cyber Security Society. The Society, which isn’t limited to computing students, runs sessions every week teaching the 120 members ethical hacking, cyber security and other skills they can apply to real life situations, whether in their future career or as a  hobby.

The skillset Sophia has gained from her course and society enabled her to take part in the European Cyber Security Challenge.  

Angelos Stefanidis, Head of Department for Computing at ¶¹ÄÌÊÓƵ, said: “We are really proud of the Society’s achievements in the competition. It showcases our students’ journey throughout their course and the personal development they have all been able to achieve. The courses we provide at ¶¹ÄÌÊÓƵ encapsulate both strong conceptual learning along with practical applications of technical knowledge and skills to real life scenarios, highlighted by the students’ success within such a challenging and large competition." 

At the competition, Sophia met the Ireland coach who invited her and a team of ¶¹ÄÌÊÓƵ students to compete in the Zero Days competition which they organise. After hosting team qualifiers and competitions, ¶¹ÄÌÊÓƵ's Cyber Security Society established 3 competing teams that could be sent around the country.

The top 2 teams went to Dublin, Ireland, to compete and achieved a 3rd and 4th place finish amongst over 60 teams from all over Europe in the college/university category.