Record number of students training to become ‘ethical hackers’ 

A record number of cyber students are now training to become Scotland’s best ethical hackers. The Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC) works with students enrolled on the Ethical Hacking and Digital Forensic courses at Abertay University, training them in ethical hacking while also giving them corporate experience presenting workshops and events to businesses across the UK. SBRC runs Curious Frank, a subdivision which aims to support business resilience in the cyber realm. The team has grown by 30% to 23 hackers since 2018, making this the highest enrolment since the partnership began. Curious Frank utilises ethical hacking to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities, in a bid to prevent exploitation by malicious hackers. Identifying weaknesses in an organisation’s infrastructure is an essential component of combatting cybercrime. Eamonn Keane, Chief Operating Officer for Cyber and Innovation, said: “With technology advancing and more and more criminal activities taking place online, we need a growing multiplicity of cyber associated roles to include ethical hackers who are trained to identify and reduce the potential attack surface and reduce cybercrime. “Identifying and mitigating weaknesses is an essential component of an overarching cybersecurity strategy and highly recommended in the ‘defence in depth’ application for Scottish businesses. “We’re thrilled Curious Frank continues to have such huge appeal to students interested in the different ways we use tech to combat crime. “Our amazing team of ethical hackers play a really important role in not only working with businesses to identify vulnerabilities, but also raising awareness about cybersecurity and educating organisations in how to secure sensitive data.” Almost all sectors, including sports, oil and gas, finance and banking, energy, and academia are among those working with and learning from the ethical hacking approach in preventing cybercrime. The latest team are also working to smash through stereotypes within the sector, promoting cyber diversity as more female students have enrolled in the course than any previous year whilst also providing excellent candidates to meet increasing skills demand within the industry. Jessica Amery, who is currently enrolled on the ethical hacking course, said: “Whilst there’s still a long way to go, the number of women in STEM industries has really improved in recent years – I’m so glad to be a part of it.” The ethical hacking programme, run through the alliance between SBRC and Abertay University, has been successfully running for nearly six years and continues to draw in a great deal of students each year. The Scottish Business Resilience Centre supported Cyber Scotland Week from 17^th to 23^rd February. The week of planned events showcased the innovation taking place across the sector, while also raising awareness of good cyber resilience practice and promoting a career within the industry. For more information, visit: https://cyberscotlandweek.scot/ SBRC’s unique connection to Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and Scottish Government gives it exclusive access to the latest information on legislation, criminal trends and threats, allowing it to provide the very best advice to safeguard staff, customers and business.