• Charles Sturt student team win one of two first place spots in NSW Police Force’s inaugural Cybercrime Think Tank
• Student teams from seven NSW universities competed to develop innovative solutions to real life cybercrimes
• Two Charles Sturt teams of students studying Master of Cyber Security took part in the challenge

A team of Charles Sturt University students have put their cybercrime fighting skills to the test and nabbed one of two first place positions at a NSW Police Force (NSWPF) competition.

The inaugural Cybercrime Think Tank, held on Thursday 6 May at NSWPF Headquarters in Parramatta, challenged students from seven universities to develop innovative ideas to solve two real life cybercrimes.

The teams were given 10 minutes to present their ideas for each of the competition’s two challenges:

• How can individuals identify their vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks and make themselves more resilient?
• How can we identify the ultimate beneficiaries of proceeds of crime received as cryptocurrency?

Two teams from Charles Sturt’s Master of Cyber Security were invited to take part, with one team providing the winning solution to the second cybercrime challenge.

Academic lead for the Charles Sturt students competing and Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing and Mathematics Dr Arif Khan said all of the University’s students performed extremely well and he was proud of the standard of work they submitted.

“Charles Sturt University has a strong cyber security course, with both cryptocurrency and community resilience in cyber security taught within our course,” Dr Khan said.

“This competition was a chance for our students to not only develop innovative and practical solutions, but to learn the skills of how to present their solutions to industry and how to defend their solutions.

“I believe our students performed so well in this competition because our courses are practical, based on state-of-the-art content and very much aligned with industry needs.

“The focus of our teaching is to develop students’ problem-solving skills and critical thinking, so they can apply innovative solutions to solve the real-life problems in the industry.”

The solutions students submitted were assessed by a panel of leaders in law enforcement and technology.

This included Deputy Commissioner David Hudson, Investigations and Counter Terrorism; Detective Superintendent Matt Craft, Commander of the Cybercrime Squad; Mr Gordon Dunsford, Chief Information and Technology Officer (CITO) and Executive Director Digital Technology and Innovation, and Ms Jenna Bradley, Acting Director, Strategic Delivery and Innovation, Office of the Commissioner.

Mr Craft said the winning Charles Sturt team put forward a very technical and complex solution that will greatly benefit the NSWPF.

“The group were able to clearly articulate what needed to be done to help solve this challenge, and how investigators could use their solution to the organisation’s advantage,” he said.

“The idea was presented in a video format that was entertaining to watch and easy to understand.

“The quality of presentations from all of the universities was high, and the Cybercrime Squad is grateful for all of the effort and time that students took to develop their ideas and formulate their presentations.”

Talented students who took part in the event may be identified as talent by the Cybercrime Squad and receive a potential internship offer with the NSWPF.

Students competing in the challenge were from: Charles Sturt, Southern Cross University, University of New England, University of Newcastle, Western Sydney University, Macquarie University, and University of Technology Sydney.