October saw colleagues at Sussex celebrate Cyber Security Awareness Month with a series of events to boost cyber security knowledge. Playing their part to help keep Sussex cyber secure, staff took part in a cyber security Escape Room challenge, a lecture about cybercrime and the law, a cyber security ‘lunch and learn’ and a cyber security health check. 

Each event was carefully designed to support our wider cyber security campaign, improving awareness of cyber threats that affect us all, and helping to keep us and our systems and data safe. 

Escape Room challenge

Our fun cyber escape room challenge was designed by Educational Enhancement’s Dr Katie Piatt. Working in teams of two, colleagues tackled a series of challenging cyber puzzles against the clock. The challenge was designed to highlight the importance of good password security and correct use of URLs. 

 Andy Humphrey (ITS Business partner) who attended the session said:

“Working with my team mate on the challenge, we did escape (just!) but it’s amazing what everyday items can be used to gather and piece that personal information together, what can be easily overlooked by us when it comes to protecting our personal data and some of the bad practices/implications e.g. storing passwords under keyboards/coasters etc that are perhaps not thought about. A great thought-provoking activity.”

Cybercrime and the Law

Dr Jessica Shurson (Lecturer in Law) joined colleagues to outline the challenges of policing cybercrime, highlighting the importance of effective cyber security and prevention. The session was recorded for those not able to attend in person.

See the video and presentation slides;

Cyber Lunch and Learn 

Thirty colleagues from ITS and Sussex Projects joined speakers Nadia Dzainuddin and Prithvi Gudodagi from the Cyber Security team, for an introduction to the team’s work. and the support they provide. A live demonstration on the tools used to work with data and help solve incidents rounded off the session.

Cyber Security Health Check in

The last event of the series gave staff and students a chance to talk with colleagues in ITS about cyber security concerns, from using strong passwords, to practical advice about laptops and devices being up to date and secure. ITS’s own DJ (Pi3ZN) Prithvi Gudodagi provided a funky soundtrack for the session.

Find out more

To find out more about cyber security at Sussex,visit the ITS Cyber Security Programme webpages. If you have any questions about the campaign, please contact: TransformingSussex@sussex.ac.uk.