Cyber Security Lesson For Tayside Pupils

Hundreds of secondary school children from across Tayside will get a lesson on cyber security later. They are taking part in interactive demos covering password security and digital footprints during the unique lecture at Abertay Uni.

Dr Ian Ferguson's a senior lecturer in digital forensics there and explains why it's an area of interest for academics....

Martin Beaton, who set up the lecture series, explains: "Cyber attacks have been categorised by the UK Government as a Tier One threat to our national security. On top of that, the National Audit Office has stated that there is a 20 year skills gap we need to find people for.

"Given this desperate situation - and with industry willing to pay high salaries for cyber security skills - you might think that computer science is a popular subject. But it is barely taught in schools. In fact, the number of classes - as well as the number of computer science teachers - has actually dwindled over the past five years. And we really need to do something about that.

"We started the lectures for school pupils back in 2012 and - although it was a last minute affair - it was a roaring success.

"The first tranche of tickets were snapped up in only a few days, so we made a second session available, which similarly sold out.

"Last year was even better, with 3000 school pupils attending across the 12 sessions that we ran. Industry, academia and Police Scotland all contributed considerable amounts of time for free and the feedback we got from schools was tremendous."

As well as demos from Abertay, NCC Group will be showing the pupils how it is possible to hack without computers, and Dundee University will go through some of the codebreaking techniques used by the likes of Alan Turing at Bletchley Park.

Police Scotland and the Cyber Security Challenge UK will also be involved.