GCU student is in the running for prestigious award at the Cyber Community Awards
A GCU student has been nominated for a prestigious award for developing a project to help student stay safe online.
Fourth year Cyber Security & Networks student Kyle Williamson has been nominated for the SBRC Student Community Champion award - presented by the Scottish Business Resilience Centre as part of the Cyber Community Awards.
The award ceremony, which is due to take place virtually on the 25th of February, is being hosted to celebrate work being carried out locally within the cyber community and shines a light on the unsung heroes of cyber across Scotland.
Kyle was delighted to have been nominated for the award. He said: “Being shortlisted for the SBRC Student Community Champion award is a real honour.
While my goal has been to educate the students of cyber security risks, it was unexpected and very touching to be nominated for this award. It just goes to show that hard work really does pay off and it’s nice to see that someone else has noticed the work I’ve been doing, so thank you to Jackie Riley for putting me forward.”
Kyle has been recognised for his outstanding Honours project which highlights the security risks that students may face whilst learning online. He said: “The Coronavirus pandemic has caused many unprecedented challenges since its outbreak; one of these being the shift from classroom learning to online learning (e-learning).
Due to this shift, a large majority of students make use of computer technology daily to carry out their studies. For instance, students may have to carry out online lessons, communicate using emails, access their educational institution's website, converse with fellow students across social media platforms, download new software etc.”
He added: “For this reason, it is more important than ever that the necessary actions are taken to keep students and their online data protected from malicious attackers. So as part of my Honours project, I’ve created a website prototype that combines challenges and reading material to help broaden the awareness of cybersecurity threats mainly social engineering attacks to students and some of the dangers it poses as well as some countermeasures etc.
The objective of this project is to determine if the use of an educational package delivered through a website can educate and broaden the awareness of social engineering to students, in an effort to reduce the amount of successful social engineering attacks.”
Kyle is very much looking forward to the award ceremony. He said: “I’m excited about the event! It’s certainly something good to look forward to during these bizarre times.
I’m also looking forward to seeing what other people have been nominated for. Hopefully there will be some good news but if not it’s still great to be a part of, and certainly something I can put on the CV for the future.
Good luck to the GCU Cyber Clinic as well! It’s good to see that their hard work is also being recognised.”
Find out more about the Cyber Community Awards on their website
By Rachael McAlonan
Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media