Last month, we hosted the IT Security Event and our IT Security Team won Outstanding Cyber Team at the Scottish Cyber Awards 2018.

Outstanding Cyber Team

On Wednesday the 28th November, we were named joint winner (along with Police Scotland) of the award ‘Outstanding Cyber Team’ at the Scottish Cyber Awards 2018 – which took place in the Sheraton Hotel, Edinburgh.   The glitzy event recognised and celebrated the huge amount of cyber security talent across Scotland.

Photo shows Sam Foster (IT Security Assistant) and Patrick Green  – CESG Certified Professional, Snr Practitioner IT Security Officer with their award.

The IT Security team was only set up in 2016.  Sam Foster (former IT Service Desk Apprentice) is part of the team.

IT Security Event

Thanks to everyone that came along to the IT Security Event on Thursday 8 November.

Speakers
We welcomed a variety of security experts to share their wealth of knowledge, including:

• Representatives from the National Cyber Security Centre
• An ethical hacking graduate from Abertay University, Colin Urquhart
• Nick Blundell from AppCheck, a vulnerability scanning company which helps keep our University systems secure
• Sam Foster from our IT Security Team, giving an overview about IT Security at the University of St Andrews
• Marco Cook from the University of Glasgow, sharing his research in cyber forensics within military platforms

Prize draw

Well done to Kenneth Conroy from Dundee and Angus College for winning the iPad mini!There were over 70 entries – congrats!

Feedback

Over 100 students and staff passed through Parliament Hall for the event. All feedback received was greatly appreciated, a summary is presented below.

An upgrade of our telephone system is scheduled to take place between 0600-0610 on Friday 14^th December 2018.

All university landlines will be impacted, resulting in a short outage, with the exception of the main University line (01334 476161), which will function as normal. 

A few key points to note:

• We anticipate that the loss of service for each individual extension will be just a few minutes, however the ‘at risk period’ is between 0600-0610;
• A small number of University lifts cannot be used and will have signage and a physical barrier in place.  Appropriate Building Officers have been advised;
• Call forwarding from a University extension to a mobile or voicemail will not work during this time;
• Extensions in Halls of Residence, including student bedrooms, will be affected;
• Intruder or fire alarms do not run on our telephone exchange and will not be affected;
• Access Control will not be affected;
• PDQ payment machines will not work during this time – colleagues at impacted locations have been advised; 
• 999 calls cannot be made from a university telephone line during this time. If the emergency services are required, a call should be made from a mobile telephone.  Please note that some mobile providers use 112 as the emergency number –  not 999. 

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

An essential software upgrade of our Telephony system is scheduled to take place between 0630-0800 hours on Friday 17^th August 2018 .

All university landlines will be impacted, with the exception of the main University line (01334 476161), which will function as normal.

A few key points to note:

• We anticipate that the loss of service for each individual extension will be no more than 10 minutes, however the ‘at risk period’ is 0630-0800hours.
• A small number of University lifts cannot be used and will have signage and a physical barrier in place.  Appropriate Building Officers have been advised;
• Call forwarding from a University extension to a mobile or voicemail will not work during this time;
• Extensions in Halls of Residence, including student bedrooms, will be affected;
• Intruder or fire alarms do not run on our telephony exchange and will not be affected;
• Access Control will not be affected;
• PDQ payment machines will not work during this time (anticipated to be less than 10 minutes);
• 999 calls cannot be made from a university telephone line during this time. If the emergency services are required, a call should be made from a mobile telephone.  Please note that some mobile providers use 112 as the emergency number –  not 999.

We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.