• Home
  • News
  • Retail
  • BRC launches student competition to tackle cyber crime

BRC launches student competition to tackle cyber crime

By Danielle Wightman-Stone

loading...

Scroll down to read more

The British Retail Consortium has challenged students to write a paper on “cyber security risks facing the UK retail industry”, with a focus on how to tackle them, to be in with the chance to win up to 500 pounds.

The competition is open to any students based at a UK higher education establishment and is looking for students to offer new ideas on how government, law enforcement, and the retail industry should work together to tackle the main cyber security threats facing retail in the UK.

Entries will be judged by a panel of leading cyber security scholars from Imperial College, London, UCL, and King’s College, London, with the winning candidate awarded 500 pounds. There is also prize money of 200 pounds for the runner-up and 100 pounds for the third place student.

The winner of the competition will also be given the opportunity to present their aper to members of the British Retail Consortium’s Fraud and Cyber Security Group, as well as have their work printed in the organisations magazine, The Retailer.

Hugo Rosemont, crime and security policy adviser at the British Retail Consortium said: “We’re posing a new challenge around a pressing issue and we think that students across the country will rise to it.

“Working closely with partners in academia, this initiative has been designed to provide an opportunity to encourage a future generation of cyber security leaders to engage with issues of rapidly increasing importance to the UK.”

The challenge comes as the British Retail Consortium research reveals that an estimated 53 percent of reported fraud in the retail industry is cyber-enabled, which represents a total direct cost of around 100 million pounds to UK businesses.

Rosemont added: “The retail industry has long been investing in its cyber resilience in this context, however, this is a rapidly evolving field and we are inviting the next generation to come forward with suggestions of new ideas and innovation that can help us keep on top of the challenges facing businesses.”

Deadline for student submissions is May 14, 2017.

BRC
British Retail Consortium