Please see our exciting news and event stories below!

University of Bedfordshire BCS Student Chapter!

On Tuesday March 12th 2024, our opening event was about Rethinking AI and Its Impact on Business and Humanity.

Photo: Nika S Underwood YPG (Young Professional Group Representative) at BBN (Beds Bucks and Northants) BCS branch and chair of the UoB BCS Student Chapter.

Daniel Hulme, an AI expert and one of the top 10 Chief AI Officers globally, shared his insights on working with AI and how it can be leveraged to its full potential.

Photo: Daniel Hulme CEO of Satalia, and Chief AI Officer at WPP.

The event also featured an engaging drone flying workshop and a Cadbury Cream Egg hunt, providing a perfect blend of education, fun and networking opportunities.

Photo: (left to right) Karl Maxwell, Adedayo K Ogunmiloyo, Shahil Kumar Pathania, Jemil Pranav Patel, Julia Strok Underwood and Nika Strok Underwood.

To join our BCS chapter, using your UoB account please email: contact@uob-student-chapter.net

Below are the CST Events from previous years!

Mark Wilson - Guest Lecture

From 0 – 60 in 90 minutes!

Tuesday 10 Oct from 1:00 pm

Guest Lecture: Mark Wilson GSE UK Region Manager and GSE UK Conference Manager

(See Cybersecurity Club@UoB BREO site for details)

Mark will start with 'What an Earth is a Mainframe', why it's used and more importantly who uses them.

He will then discuss the options for securing a mainframe system, the typical configurations and the typical/common security vulnerabilities.

Mark will also explain that when it comes to Cybersecurity, a mainframe is just another server or IP address with a few mainframe oddities thrown in, so don't be scared of it. The hackers certainly aren't.

There will be lots of stories some true and some anecdotal of mainframe hacking.

Mark Wilson's bio on LinkedIn

Mark Wilson's bio on vertali.com

CST School and BCS Student Chapter - Visit to ONI PLC Data Centre, Luton.

ST School and BCS Student Chapter - Visit to ONI PLC Data Centre, Luton, Thursday 9 December, 2021, 4:30 to 6:30pm

A small group of CST students were fortunate to be able to visit the ONI Data Centre in Luton on 9 December. The visit included an introduction to ONI and cloud services, an explanation of the current state of IT cloud services and a tour of the Data Centre. Student feedback from the visit was very positive, and they were made to feel very welcome by ONI staff.

Many organisations are offloading their IT infrastructure through cloud based managed services. There are many business benefits as well as potential pitfalls.

Established in 1992, ONI Ltd, now part of the Thrive Networks Group, is a leading provider of IT solutions and services to both public sector and commercial markets.

ONI offers a comprehensive range of on-site, cloud and hybrid technology solutions.

ONI expertise spans core network infrastructure, unified communications and collaboration, contact centre solutions, data centre services, connectivity and cyber-security. The ONI staff explained how changes in data storage technologies, the impact of virtualisation and changes is customer requirements continue to impact on their operations.

ONI cloud services are delivered from a Tier 3+ Data Centre, located in the South East of England, and include infrastructure, backup, disaster recovery, collaboration and contact centre solutions as-a-service. The visit explained the current state of IT services and included a tour of the Data Centre.

It is hoped that this will be the start of ONI PLC and the School of Computer Science working much more closely together in the future to the benefit of both our students and ONI.

This visit was organised by the University’s School of Computer Science and Technology, by the Bedford branch of the BCS, and by the CST School’s BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society.

Master the Mainframe

We are proud to announce the University of Bedfordshire came 3rd in the Master The Mainframe 2019 competition with 38 registrations. This included 13 students who completed Part 1, 2 completed Part 2, and 1 completed part 3.

Two students who were Part 2 and Part 3 finishers are listed in the Hall of Fame 2019 (among the 33 entries) - go to mtm2019.mybluemix.net click on the UK map, then search for Bedfordshire.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to all our students who took part and to Daniel Serbanescu and Radu Popescu for their success in the hall of fame!

IBM Blockchain Workshop

Speaker: Matt Lucas, Blockchain Global Engagement at IBM

Wednesday 27 November 2019 10:00am to 5:00pm

This event was organised by the University of Bedfordshire CST School together with the BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society

On Wednesday, 27 November the CST School was privileged to once again welcome IBM’s Matt Lucas, Blockchain Global Engagement, to share his in-depth knowledge, and practical experience of Blockchain technology.

If you want to learn about Blockchain then you could not have afforded to miss this event.

IBM’s Matt Lucas, Global Blockchain Engagement held a very successful, well attended all-day theoretical and hands-on workshop.

Blockchain technical skills are in high demand, with the World Economic Forum predicting that 10% of global GDP will be stored on blockchains or blockchain related technology by 2025. It is rare for a technology to have interest from the C-suite to the developer community.

Matt Lucas from IBM’s blockchain team returned for another year to hold an all-day technical workshop telling you what you need to know.

Blockchain is a shared, replicated ledger that underpins technology such as Bitcoin. Blockchain's reach is far wider than cryptocurrency however, as it sets out to provide the foundation for a new generation of transactional applications that establish trust and transparency, while streamlining business processes.

Are you curious about Blockchain and what it can do? In this one-day workshop students learned the essentials of blockchain:

• Blockchain Explained: What blockchain (distributed ledger technology) is and why it is important
• Blockchain Technologies: Comparing blockchain technologies (ie. Ethereum, Bitcoin, Hyperledger Fabric)
• Blockchain Technical Concepts: The technical concepts of blockchain: data structures and algorithms
• Blockchain Software Engineering: Building your first application and deploying your first network

The workshop targeted students with a technical background since it built on basic computer science concepts and included basic programming in JavaScript, knowledge of which was desirable but not essential.

The workshop focused on the use of distributed ledgers in business scenarios, and thus took into account the various privacy and confidentiality requirements that organisations face, and the various other regulatory frameworks that govern business today.

About the lecturer:

Matt Lucas is part of IBM’s global blockchain team. His role is to help people understand and apply blockchain technologies and works closely with emerging blockchain fabrics such as Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum. He is based in IBM’s development laboratory in Hursley and has worked with IBM for 20 years on a variety of integration middleware technologies. Matt is also an advisor for the British Blockchain Association and an associate lecturer at the University of Oxford.

Feedback from students was very positive: “I found the workshop extremely useful and the speaker really informative.”

“There was a lot of content and lot to take in. It is a growing area of interest for most people and trying to understand the technology can be hard. However, I went away with a really good understanding of the technology and how it can help me.”

“The workshop was very interesting, informative and intellectually stimulating. The time spent was very well invested. I plan to explore it in more detail relevant to job roles availability.”

CST School / BCS Student Chapter - Visit to ONI plc Data Centre, Luton

Date: Tuesday 22 October, 2019
Time: 4:30 to 6:30pm
Location: ONI plc, 16-24 Crawley Green Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU2 0QX

A group of over 20 CST students were very fortunate to be able to visit the ONI PLC Data Centre on 22 October, 2019. The visit included an introduction to ONI and cloud services, an explanation of the current state of IT cloud services and a visit to the Data Centre.

The students were made to feel very welcome by Mark Collins, CTO and Implementation Services Director and Russell King, Head of CAPS and their team, and, following refreshments they delivered a comprehensive overview of ONI and wide range of data storage options currently available. This was followed by a tour of the impressive data centre.

If you have an opportunity to attend a similar visit in the future, this is one no one should miss!

Many organisations are offloading their IT infrastructure through cloud based managed services. There are many business benefits as well as potential pitfalls.

Established in 1992, ONI plc is a leading provider of IT solutions and services to both public sector and commercial markets. Privately owned, ONI offers a comprehensive range of on-site, cloud and hybrid technology solutions.

ONI expertise spans core network infrastructure, unified communications and collaboration, contact centre solutions, data centre services, connectivity and cyber-security. ONI cloud services are delivered from a Tier 3+ Data Centre, located in the South East of England, and include infrastructure, disaster recovery, UC, collaboration and contact centre solutions as-a-service. Student feedback following the visit was very, very positive.

For example, James Campbell (Year 3 BSc (Hons), Artificial Intelligence and Robotics undergraduate), said on Twitter:

"Mind blowing day at ONI Data Centre in Luton. Thank you #universityofbedfordshire for arranging an exclusive event to find out more how #BigData is stored and managed in facilities like these. ONI struts a Tier 3 data centre infrastructure, a gold standard partnership with #Cisco and collaborations with many other huge names in tech as you may be able to make out from the wall list I am blocking in the picture below!

The #Nimbus infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS) solutions from ONI are great in capability and prove a threat to its competitors. Incredible to see the finest examples of storage and networking hardware set ups which has provided 100% Data Centre Services uptime so far and counting....one hundred percent! I am grateful to have had the full talk and tour experience from CTO @Mark Collins and Head of CaPS @Russell King. In short, I had a good time :)"

This visit was organised by the University’s School of Computer Science and Technology, by the Bedford branch of the BCS, and by the CST School’s BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society.

This event has been organised by the University of Bedfordshire CST School together with the BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society

Ransomware – Kill Chain and Defence! – Thursday, 14 November 2019 6.00-8.00pm

• Presentation on Thursday 14 November
• 6.00-8.00pm, Room A004
• Speaker: Geraint Williams, CISO, GRC International Group.

On Thursday, 14 November the CST School was privileged to once again welcome Geraint Williams, CISO, GRC International Group, to share his in-depth knowledge, research and practical experience of the phenomenon of Ransomware.

The session was very well attended with enthusiastic students from Years 1 to MSc level as well as external visitors, and there were a large number of questions from the audience as well as during the networking session at the end of the talk.

Ransomware has been a major threat to organisations and individual over the last few years. Infections waned at the end of last year but have risen in the first half of this year with new code innovations and much more targeted approach being deployed.

The LockerGoga ransomware, for example, hit a Norwegian manufacturing company and halted production in several of its plants in March, eventually resulting in over US$ 55 million (£45 million) in financial losses. In addition, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, had incurred US$ 5.3 million (£4.3 million) in recovery costs after its systems were infected with the Robin Hood ransomware in May.

This presentation looked at the phenomenon of ransomware and reviewed the ransomware kill chain detailing the stages a ransomware attack goes through. A review was included of a case study of a blended attack that cumulated in ransomware denotating which involving an agricultural company in the UK. The session finished by going the steps that can help to protect you against attack.

Speaker’s Profile

Geraint Williams is the CISO at GRC International Group. Geraint is a knowledgeable and experienced Information Security consultant with experience including vulnerability testing, digital forensics, secure networking, and wireless security issues.

Geraint has a strong technical knowledge of security and IT infrastructure including high performance computing. Geraint has a number of certifications in security and digital forensics including CISSP, CISA, CEH and CHFI and is a Qualified Security Assessor for the Payment Card Industry (PCI).

The CST School is once again very grateful to Geraint for so readily giving up his valuable time to share his expertise and passion for all things related to cybersecurity with our Computing students. Geraint will be back in the New Year to deliver a practical hands-on workshop on Weaponised PDFs.

Arranged by the CST School’s BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society

Cyber Crime Prevention - Cyber Threats, Vulnerabilities and Career Opportunities – 23 October 2019

Speakers:

• Stephanie Frankish, ERSOU (Eastern Region Special Operations Unit)
• Sean O’Neil, Cyber Security Consultant for Bedfordshire Police

Cyber-crime is an ever-increasing threat within the UK. Cyber-crime is estimated to be costing the UK economy billions of pounds per year, and the costs to individuals and businesses are often staggering.

There are over £1mllion victims of cyber-crime each day, but GCHQ believes that 80% of cyber-crime is easily preventable. 60% of small companies are unable to sustain their businesses over 6 months after a cyber attack

“There was nothing I could do, I was powerless and they knew it. We’d only started the business two years ago, there was no way to pull it back” - Matt

The Cyber Choices input will raise awareness of the computer misuse act 1990, with up to date and relevant examples of people who have been convicted under the different sections of this act. Cyber prevent officers, who deliver the Cyber Choices programme, work a lot with the cyber security industry to gain valuable insight into what it takes to be successful in this profession. This will include valuable tips on where to go to practice your skills legally and safely to become the next generation of cyber security professionals ie. pentesters, ethical hackers, web developers, digital forensic examiners etc. This will give a good insight into cyber security career pathways and at the vast number of opportunities available in this field for well-qualified graduates.

Prior to starting her role with Cyber Prevent team from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit in September 2017, Stephanie Frankish studied criminology with sociology and has worked in the police within prevention for the past 5-6 years. Starting with general crime prevention, onto counter terrorism prevent and now into cyber.

One of the roles of the Regional Cyber Crime Prevent team (of the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit) is to provide both potential victims and perpetrators with a sound understanding of the Computer Misuse Act and the impact of its infringement. Stephanie explained how an individual can avoid becoming yet another statistic in this list of cybercrimes. What steps can be taken? She also looked at cyber security career pathways and at the vast number of opportunities available in this field for well-qualified graduates.

Stephanie would be happy to speak about their pathways more and to answer any questions you may have on this or around the Cyber Choices messaging.

Sean O’Neil, Cyber Security Consultant for Bedfordshire Police, then led an informative and lively discussion around current threats - giving examples of recent cases that have caused loss to businesses and individuals. Sean has extensive law enforcement experience having served for 30 years in UK Police service. As a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) he is experienced in dealing with critical incidents affecting organisational reputation - including extortion, product contamination, and large-scale frauds. Sean now provides cyber security and anti-fraud advice direct to businesses. The presentation considered how fraudsters prepare to steal your money, and how effective are the banks and Police in coping with the rising number of incidents of cyber-crime. What are the 5 basic steps every business should take to reduce vulnerability to cyber-crime?

Sean has extensive law enforcement experience having served for 30 years in UK Police service. As a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) he is experienced in dealing with critical incidents affecting organisational reputation - including extortion, product contamination, and large-scale frauds. Sean undertook a regional loss prevention, security and investigations manager role for a large ecommerce company heading investigations into organised crime attacks on the company. In this role, he investigated large-scale counterfeit allegations and high end cyber enabled crime such as fraud. Sean now provides cyber security and anti-fraud advice direct to businesses.

The talk was well attended and many questions came from the enthusiastic audience both during and after the presentations. We were pleased to welcome to the session seven Year 12 pupils and their teacher from Freman Upper School and Sixth Form College. It is hoped that this talk will be followed up by a visit by the CST School’s students to Bedfordshire Police’s Cyber Crime Hub’s laboratories at the Kempston HQ to see how actual forensic cases are handled.

Both Stephanie and Sean have provided copies of their comprehensive presentations and an information pack which will be made available to participants and will also uploaded to BREO.

This event was organised by the CST School, the CST School’s BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society in collaboration with the Careers and Employability team.

Wednesday 16 October 2019

Programming Workshop – Introducing Design Patterns with Ruby Examples

On Wednesday 16 October the CST School was privileged to welcome Graham Lewis, Senior Software Developer at TUI, Luton, who – at short notice – agreed to give a lecture and hands-on demonstration on Design Patterns with examples from Ruby.

The session was very well attended with enthusiastic students from Years 2 to MSc level.

Graham started by introducing the history and concept of Design Patterns from the early days of architectural design. He explained what they are in the context of software development – and what they are not - and how they should be used. He also talked about the advantages of adopting Design Patterns in software engineering.

The hands-on session comprised examples from the Ruby programming language. Ruby is one of the most popular programming languages making it easier to grasp the idea behind the patterns. The workshop covered the following most commonly used design patterns starting with the most simple – Singleton, Factory, Strategy, Builder and State. Nothing fazes the CST Computing students – even working with a completely new concept and, for most, a new programming language, and even after the scheduled end of the session they wanted more!

Many thanks to Graham for giving up his valuable time to support and motivate the CST students. Many of the students already know Graham who is an enthusiastic veteran of the yearly TUI Hackathons.

Trainer’s Profile

Graham is a Senior Software Developer at TUI, Luton. He is a Ruby, Ruby-on-Rails, JavaScript and Java developer with object-oriented analysis and modelling (object and data) skills. His work combines strong business focus with the ability to translate business requirements into pragmatic working code and systems. Graham prefers working in an Agile environment and has a highly developed Agile/Lean perspective. He is a strong team-player with excellent communication skills and a passion and drive to deliver tools and systems to get the job done.

Key Technical Skills

• Ruby, Sinatra and Ruby-on-Rails
• Java: Servlets, POJOs and JavaServer Pages (JSP)
• JavaScript
• HTML / CSS
• Agile / Lean methodologies and practices
• Test Driven Development (TDD) & Behaviour Driven Development (BDD)
• Web design and standards
• Version control: Git, CVS and Subversion
• Databases: Relational & NoSQL - Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• Object-oriented analysis, design and implementation skills
• Data modelling, design and analysis: relational, dimensional and information architecture REST API design
• Experience of full project lifecycle and roles
• Comfortable with a wide variety of deployment, continuous integration and development tools, methodologies and operating systems and experience with DevOps

Arranged by the CST School’s BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society

Friday 4 October 2019

Introductory Games Night BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing Society

This event was organised by the University of Bedfordshire CST School together with the BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society

On Friday, 4 October as an introduction to the start of the year’s events and activities for University of Bedfordshire BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing SU Society an Introductory Games Night was organised. The event was well attended by many enthusiastic students from both first and second years.

The idea was that this should be an enjoyable games night where students could come and play games with other like-minded students and meet new people, learn about the BCS and also enter competitions to show their skills.

Students were informed about the Society activities planned for 2019-2020, but they were also asked to give input into things they would like to get involved with. There was a great deal of interest from students to join the Beds Computing Society / University of Bedfordshire BCS Student Chapter.

We held a Fortnight tournament. This consisted of a few different rounds held on a private server for just the students attending. This was followed up by a final tournament of all the winners of each round going ‘head-to-head’. Congratulations to the winner of the Fortnight tournament - Year 1 BSc (Hons) Computer Games Development student, Szymon Sprawka.

Tuesday 24 September 2019

University of Bedfordshire Freshers’ Fayre - BCS Student Chapter / Beds Computing Society

Freshers’ Fayre took place at the Luton Campus on Tuesday 24 September, and the Beds Computing Society / BCS Student Chapter were kept very busy on the Society stall all day with enquiries and signups by new potential members.

We had a lot of different things to display from hacking tools to Arduinos and Raspberry Pi’s. We also had a cryptography challenge. The winner’s prize was an Arduino Starter Kit - with everything they need to get started making small hardware projects.

We let students know about activities planned for 2019-2020. Students were told about the weekly student-led learning workshops where they could learn Programming, Arduino’s and Linux as well as a range of other topics. These workshops will be held every Wednesday between 2:00 pm and 9:00 pm. Workshops will organised and taught by students for students. The idea is that any student can run a workshop or lecture if they feel they have something to offer.

As well as being informed about the Society activities planned for 2019-2020, we asked students for ideas of things they would like to learn and events they would like to attend. There was a great deal of interest from CST and non-CST students for attending events and learning new skills.

Many students signed up as members of the Beds Computing Society / University of Bedfordshire BCS Student Chapter. The BCS Student Chapter had generously supplied boxes of ‘goodies’ – tote bags, wallet card protectors, highlighters and many more handy tools.

The Freshers’ Fayre was a great success and a very good start to 2019.

We would like to thank the BCS Student Chapter for their continual generous support and encouragement.

Wednesday 24th July 2019

Two University of Bedfordshire Computing Year 1 Undergraduates Recognised for their Outstanding Achievements

The outstanding achievements of two Computing Year 1 Undergraduates were recognised at an Award Presentation on Wednesday 24 July. Both student students, Dimitra Krezia (studying BSc Computer Science (Hons)) and Vince Goldman (studying BSc Computer Security and Forensics (with Professional Practice Year) (Hons)) gained an amazing A+ grade for every assignment in the four units studied with an average overall mark of well over 90%.

Throughout the year they have both been an inspiration to their friends and peers. Outside their studies, they have also been very proactive in taking advantage of the many extra-curricular events organised by the BCS Student Chapter, the Beds Computing SU Society and others.

Dimitra Krezia was rewarded for commitment to her studies with the BCS (The Chartered Institute of IT) Bedford Branch Student Prize which is given every year to the highest performing first year computing student in the University’s School of Computer Science and Technology.

Dimitra’s prize includes automatic membership of the BCS for the remainder of her studies and a £150 cash prize. Her certificate was presented by the Chair of the BCS Bedford Branch Dr Ip-Shing Fan from Cranfield University.

Vince Goldman was awarded the School of Computer Science and Technology Prize which was presented by Dr Paul Sant, Head of School, School of Computer Science and Technology.

Dimitra Krezia had very little experience of Computer Science and programming until she came to the University

“Getting the first place and the BCS award was something unexpected for me, especially if you told me that I'd get it when I first started. I had almost zero experience with coding and computer science in general before joining the University, and I was scared that I would lack compared to other students.”

“The university helped me a lot in overcoming this anxiety by being very supportive towards mature students that have to work and by having a clear curriculum that allowed me to take my first steps into the very vast programming world. The teachers, in combination with the events organised during the year, contributed a lot to my success.”

“It was a very challenging first year, with long hours of study and work but it was also interesting and exciting to learn so much. In the end, I am honoured to receive this prize and see my efforts being rewarded in this way. I am looking forward to new, exciting challenges in my 2nd year.”

When Vince Goldman joined the University in October, 2018 he had only one year’s experience in computing after completing an Access Course.

“When I first arrived at University for the registration I found many interesting activities to attend and I had the opportunity to meet my new classmates. This experience was invaluable as I met people who would form my main group of friends - some of them on my course - some not. This group got larger and more diverse as the year continued. Luckily, this group also wanted to learn as much as I did and we competed in hackathons and took part in most of the other events the University provided for us. I learned much from my peers and these extra-curricular events, and we all had something to offer each other - whether it be softer skills such as motivation and confidence building, or programming and using tools I had never heard of.”

“I hope to continue my success next year.”

Left to Right. Daniel Serbanescu (Student), Dr Jon Hitchcock, Dr Paul Sant (Head of School, School of Computer Science and Technology), Radu Popescu (Student), Dr Elias Eze, Dr Tess Crosbie, Professor Jan Domin (Executive Dean of CATS Faculty), Dimitra Krezia, Alexandra Kalogeraki (Student), Vincent Goldman, Vince's Father, Vince's Wife, Karen Chessum (Technical Support Assistant), Dr Marc Conrad, Rob Keane (Technical Services Manager), Vince's Mother, Dr Ip-Shing Fan (Chair BCS Bedford Branch, Cranfield University).

“It is great to see such dedication and hard work, and is great that we can reward it through the kind sponsorship of BCS” said Dr Paul Sant, Head of the School, Computer Science and Technology.

Sue Brandreth, Associate Lecturer at the University as well as committee member and Education Liaison Officer of the Bedford Branch of the BCS, said: “From the start is was obvious that both Dimitra and Vince were determined to do well and make the most of the opportunities that the University provides. They readily took advice from teaching staff about the best approach to learning and have really excelled. They have been model students and an inspiration to both fellow students and teaching staff”.

Friday 24th May 2019

Project Poster Event 2019

The CST School held it's annual Project Poster Event on the Friday 24^th May 2019, in the Luton Campus Centre. This event saw a number of business visitors and offered an opportunity for our CST third year students to exhibit their final projects in poster format and to demonstrate their artefacts to visitors and industry. The event was open to all students and members of staff to have a look at some of the wonderful achievements of our 3rd years!

Best Poster

• 1^st Nishat Ahmad
• 2^nd Muhammad Zulqarnain
• 3^rd Jason Clifton

Best Academic Contribution

• 1^st Aykut Sirma
• 2^nd Miguel Fernandes Vieira
• 3^rd Boguslaw Smolarczyk

Best Commercially Viable Project

• 1^st Jason Clifton
• 2^nd Maciej Olkowicz
• 3^rd Enoch Banjo

Sodalite Prizes

Three prizes were donated by Sodalite.

Best Poster

• Fortune Nweke-Maraizu

Best Academic Contribution

• Enoch Banjo

Most Commercially Viable

• Jordan Dunn

Hornby Prizes

Two prizes were donated by Hornby.

Projects with Most Potential

• Sadiqul Chowdhury
• Jack Bartlett

The prizes were presented by Dr Paul Sant (on right in photo(s) above ), Head of the School of Computer Science and Technology.

Wednesday, 13 March 2019

The Cybersecurity Club

The Cybersecurity Club @ UoB has presented to around 37 pupils from Luton High Schools (Lee Manor, Challney High School for Girls, etc.), two sessions on Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics, as part of the University’s Festival of Science and Engineering on 13 March 2019. Presentations were given by the Club members:

• Lee
• Cristian
• Richard
• Muhammad

Various Ethical Hacking tools (some pictured here) and topics covering the following list were demonstrated:

• Physical security
• Wireless network security
• Computer security
• Drones
• Steganography

Pupils were fully engaged and showed great interest in finding out more about Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics.

Dr Ali Mansour (Club Organiser)

HackSter The Mainframe - Saturday, 16 February 2019

The Cybersecurity Club @ UoB and the School of Computer Science and Technology hosted this master and hack the mainframe one day event on 16 February 2019. The event was sponsored by leading industry partners namely, IBM, RSM Partners, _betasystems, Compuware, and zdevops B.V. Students were introduced to IBM Mainframes, its z/OS operating system, and given a hacking challenge to Capture The Flag (CTF). Awards were presented by the Industry partners’ representatives to the students who successfully captured the flag.

Dr Ali Mansour (Club Organiser)

As part of its new initiatives, the School of Computer Science and Technology is working to setup its own Mainframe running IBM’s z/OS for teaching and research.

CST Students Invited to Visit TUI UK Headquarters in Luton for a ‘Hack a Ship’ Workshop - Monday, 7 January, 2019

Vince Goldman, Year 1 Undergraduate BSc (Hons) Computer Security and Forensics

Having won a Golden Ticket at the recent successful TUI Hackathon held at the University of Bedfordshire on 9-10 November, 2018, a group of us were invited to have a look round the TUI offices in December. Here we saw the different departments and how a large company is run. During this visit while we were talking to the security department staff they mentioned a seminar about hacking a cruise ship. After showing interest in this the students studying on the Computer Security degree were invited back to attend this seminar. The seminar was for TUI employees but since we had met many TUI staff a lot over the first semester, we fitted right in.

Once we sat down the seminar started, and the speaker was clear and made us feel comfortable - until he showed us what can be done with little knowledge. His firm is a penetration test company and looks for flaws in devices and websites enabling access to networks. He demonstrated this with a Wi-Fi enabled kettle the iKettle. He showed us that it was possible to gain entry to a network through this device. There were other devices he showed us that had similar weaknesses too. Including watches parents buy their children to keep track of them, and it was not long till they had a map of all the devices. A scary thought if ever in the wrong hands!

Th speaker showed us what was potentially possible if he had gained entry to an actual cruise ship, from changing the size or GPS location of the ship, to gaining customers credit card details and in turn access to their onboard accounts and entry to their rooms. His company has not been given permission to do so yet, but I think TUI will eventually have to give his company an opportunity, if only to test how secure they are.

It was a really informative talk and we have now been invited to their next seminar about Phishing, keeping the relationship between the University of Bedfordshire and TUI ongoing.

This event was organised by the University of Bedfordshire CST School.