A PhD student from Royal Holloway University has been announced the winner of the British Retail Consortium (BRC) 2017 Cyber Security Challenge.
The latest BRC Annual Retail Crime Survey pointed to an estimated 53 per cent of reported fraud in the retail industry as cyber-enabled, or a total direct cost of around £100m. Hence the BRC’s challenge, covering the cyber security risks facing the UK retail industry, and how to tackle them.
The challenge, open to any student in UK higher education, invited ideas on how government, law enforcement and industry should work together to tackle the main cyber security threats facing retail in the UK. The judging panel for the final consisted of a group of cyber security scholars: Prof Chris Hankin (Imperial College, London), Prof Angela Sasse FREng (UCL) and Dr Tim Stevens (King’s College, London).
The winning paper was authored by Andreas Haggman, studying for a PhD in Cyber Security and Geopolitics at Royal Holloway. Andreas will receive a cash prize of £500 and the opportunity to present his work to the BRC’s Fraud and Cyber Security Member Group, at which members can test and apply the analysis and have his work published in the BRC’s membership magazine, The Retailer.
Dr Tim Stevens said: “Andreas’ winning essay balances excellent awareness of retail operations with the contemporary demands of cybersecurity. It offers a picture of key threats and how retailers factor them in to their relationships with customers. In its focus on point of sale interactions, and thinks about where future threats might arise and makes concrete recommendations for improving security thinking and practice. Overall, it offers sound advice for charting a way forward for retailers and their partners in law enforcement and government.”
James Martin, Crime and Security Adviser at the BRC said: “The BRC remains fully committed to supporting its members to meet their security and cyber-security needs, and works with cutting edge partners across the corporate and public sectors, as well as in academia, to do that. The response to this competition was excellent, with the standard extremely high, and like the judges we think that the winning entries showed a combination of innovation and real-world problem solving.”
The BRC’s recently launched ‘Cyber Security Toolkit’ provides businesses of all sizes with a step-by-step guide to prevent and manage cyber security threats.
