The college was invited to participate in the Cyber Saturn competition held at Media City and in partnership with NCSC Cyber First. Students were provided with materials before the event which they needed to analyse and identify the source and repercussions of a cyber-attack which had taken place before presenting their findings to a panel of expert judges from:
- NCSC – National cyber security Centre
- BAE
- BT
- DSIT – Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
- KPMG
- GMP Cyber security unit
Before lunch, the 3 SJR teams, made up of a cross section of students from our Computer Science and IT courses had successfully progressed to the finals, knocking out various other technical colleges from the Greater Manchester region. This saw 3 of the 4 final places going to SJR with the 4th taken by UTC.
The finalist were then briefed on a new attack which had taken place and provided with additional details required to understand the incident. Teams were then asked to present their findings to an audience, including the judges.
SJR teams made a clean sweep taking, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the competition, with judges remarking on their excellent presentation skills and ability to focus in on the key details while praising their analysis skills and noting they ‘shone through’ the presentations.
This is the first time the competition has been run with colleges, having previously only being completed by universities.
As the defending champions, the college looks forward to the challenge to retain the crown next year.
