Dr Virginia Franqueira and Sarah Turner present at Empower Cyber Week

Dr Virginia Franqueira, Lecturer in Cyber Security and Sarah Turner, Research Student, both of the School of Computing, presented two live sessions as part of Cyber First's EmPower Cyber Week.

CyberFirst was set up by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to develop the UK's next generation of cyber professionals.

EmPower Cyber Week took place over five days and involved a series of recorded and live events, specifically aimed at 12-13 year old girls in the UK, providing an exciting opportunity to learn about cyber security. This virtual event included industry talks as well as speakers from the NCSC, Department of Homeland Security and other academics, covering a wide range of topics from coding to cryptography, social engineering to biometrics.

Virginia and Sarah delivered sessions on the security implications of deepfake technologies and how to perform personal threat modelling.

Sarah said, "It was an excellent opportunity to take part in this event, alongside such a range of accomplished speakers. It is always exciting to see the types of initiatives aimed to encourage girls into STEM careers, and a privilege to be a part of one. Cyber security is a broad field with many areas to explore; we are keen to play a role in inspiring the next generation of experts. Although it can be tricky to present interactive sessions over Microsoft Teams, the audience was particularly interested in how to incorporate the idea of deepfake technology into school teaching, given the potential of the technology to be used for negative purposes."

More information about the week's agenda, as well as recording of the sessions can be found on NCSC’s website, here:
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/empower-cyber-week/overview