UCL crowned first ever UK University Cipher Champion

Dr Nicolas Courtois, Senior Lecturer at UCL-CS has beaten tough competition from some of the UK’s leading universities for Computer Science to be crowned the winner of a unique code-breaking competition as part of this year’s Cyber Security Challenge UK.

The University Cipher Challenge is the first competition of its kind and was launched by the Cyber Security Challenge UK to identify and inspire students interested in entering cyber security careers to practise their skills. For this proof of concept, four Computer Science departments from UCL, The University of Birmingham, Edinburgh Napier University and The University of Bristol accepted the challenge to develop their own cipher – a puzzle based on encrypted messages – that was released to other participating universities and Challenge candidates to break.Dr Nicolas Courtois says: “Computer Science Department at UCL is delighted to have been announced as the winner of the University Cipher Challenge. We take an experimental approach to our teaching to ensure that our students have both the practical skills and the necessary expertise to solve any problem they face in the real-world. The Challenge enabled all students involved to learn a lot from their peers in a stimulating and competitive environment – both of which are integral to encouraging more people to get involved in the exciting world of cyber security. We were particularly delighted with the level of female participation from UCL’s department in the competition and we will be awarding a special, individual prize to our top cipher scorer, who happens to be female. We look forward to defending our crown in future competitions from the Cyber Security Challenge!”

For more see here.