The inaugural Schools Cyber Games, part of the Cyber Security Challenge’s programme for schools, saw Stockport School emerge victorious as the first ever UK Schools Cyber Security Champions. The Cabinet Office-backed competition aims to raise awareness of the excitement of a career in cyber security amongst a new generation of young people in order to address a growing skills shortage in this sector.

Facing five other teams from schools around the country, the group of Key Stage 4 students overcame a series of fun code-breaking and cyber security themed challenges to claim top prizes including a cash prize of £1,000, Raspberry Pi computers and a Lego Mindstorms kit.

Arriving at the University of Warwick’s School of Computer Science, the teams were immediately confronted with a ‘murdered’ body mannequin and tasked with identifying the culprit through a series of cyber clues scattered through a series of themed challenges throughout the building. Each challenge was devised by experienced cyber security experts at Cyber Security Challenge sponsors and partners BT, Bletchley Park, CompTIA, e-skills, Lancaster University, MWR/Dataline and Think Forensic.

Each challenge required high levels of ingenuity from the young candidates and included:

• Gathering and analysing forensic details from the ‘victim’

• Cracking codes using a Bletchley Park enigma machine

• Remotely navigating a camera robot through a maze in the dark and avoiding a NERF-firing trap

• Compromising an industrial water pumping station to gain access and disable communication links to a water tank in order to drain it and reveal a clue

• Using digital forensics to identify threats to a fictional Global Games opening ceremony, in a challenge that called on students to identify how social engineering can be used in cyber attacks

• Guiding a robot with limited directional instructions through a complicated maze to reach a clue

• Combining elements of physical and online security to pick locks to reveal online passwords that would lead them to an encrypted video revealing a clue

On completion of these challenges, the candidates had to overcome one final code to crack against the clock and reveal the identity of the murderer in their midst. The other schools to participate were The Kings School Chester, King Edward IV School (Chelmsford), Stockport School, Christ College Brecon and St James Senior School (London). Each was selected after finishing as the highest-scoring schools from over 560 who registered for the first stage of the Cyber Security Challenge’s Schools Programme, an online code-cracking competition.

Jane Sinclair, University of Warwick School of Computer Science: “ Days like this show just how fun the cyber security area can be, and that’s been a very important message to get across to the youngsters. They’ve all really enjoyed themselves and it’s been a pleasure seeing them learn and adapt to these new skills so quickly. Hopefully we’ll be seeing some of them again when they begin to apply for a place at University.”

Launched last year, the Schools Programme is delivered in association with major employers to ensure it develops practical and usable skills, in demand from industry. Its teaching resource packs are designed to spark students’ interest in code-breaking and start to hone their skills by not only teaching them how to crack codes, but also encouraging them to work in teams to develop their own.

The Event was covered by BBC West Midlands Today

The EPSRC has recently announced funding for a new Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Urban Science, which will train scientists to harvest and process big data in order to develop a better understanding of the science of cities, and to apply that knowledge to find smart solutions to urban problems.

In just a few decades the world's population will exceed 9 billion, 70% of whom will live in cities. Enabling those cities to deliver services effectively, efficiently and sustainably, while keeping their citizens safe, healthy, prosperous and well informed, will be among the most important undertakings of this century” [UN Habitat].

This new CDT is led by Computer Science at Warwick, and involves partnership with the cities of New York and Birmingham. Several industry partners are backing the centre, including IBM, URS, AT&T, Cisco, E.ON and British Gas. The centre will support over 50 new PhD students over the next 5 years and each student will have the opportunity to work as part of a larger cohort, involving students from Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, University of Toronto and IIT Mumbai.

The CDT will provide EPSRC-funded PhD students with an unprecedented opportunity to work with industry experts and alongside our city officials on real-world urban science problems. Seldom have so many international academic institutions, leading businesses and city agencies been focused on one activity; seldom has the opportunity arisen to develop scientific solutions that will have direct impact on billions of the world’s population.” [Deputy Mayor New York City]

For more information about the centre, or enquiries about PhD opportunities, please contact Prof Stephen Jarvis.

Our new 3-year Data Science degree is launched this week at the Warwick undergraduate open days. This unique course aims to meet the rapidly growing demand, from students and employers alike, for a systematic, flexible combination of high-level learning and experience in both Computer Science and Statistics.

The first cohort of students will start in 2014. The course structure includes the option of an intercalated year, a year spent away from Warwick (either in industry or at an overseas partner university) to gain valuable experience before the final year of the degree.

The Head of Statistics, Professor David Firth, says: "We, together with the Department of Computer Science, are pleased to be leading the way with this new initiative at the undergraduate level. But really this is overdue: the demand from employers for well-qualified data scientists is insatiable already, and looks set to be huge for years to come. Our aim is to provide the very best course of its kind anywhere in the world".

This exciting new course will appear on the UCAS system shortly, in good time for the 2013-14 admissions season.