False Start For Cyber Security Challenge UK

An anonymous reader writes "Netcraft writes about an ironic 'false start' for the Cyber Security Challenge UK website. The new venture touts itself as 'a programme of national challenges, designed by experts, to identify and nurture the UK's future cyber security workforce.' Unfortunately, the website appears to be vulnerable to a basic cross-site scripting vulnerability which was easily found by some Twitter users."

First Post!

[denmarkw00t]

Or if someone else already got it, they were using simple hacks described on...twitter?

Re:First Post!

[Cryacin]

Funny how an anti-hacking site is breached by a bunch of twits.

Re:

[dwarfsoft]

Or Vinegarpot [xkcd.com]?

Sigh

[bbqsrc]

Of the four paragraphs in the article, there's one entirely about how the toolbar run by the website will protect you from XSS, and hardly goes into detail about anything amusing at all. It's not even that good of an XSS hole... simply boring.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Netcraft is dying! Someone commenting about it as if they didn't know it confirms it!

Re:UK

[jcupitt65]

So they created a nice little "World University Ranking" that places almost half the value on the presence of foreign students and faculty while largely ignoring usual measures like student and faculty achievements.

No they didn't, please check your facts.

The ranking weights are:

• Peer Review Score (40%)
• Recruiter Review (10%)
• International Faculty Score (5%)
• International Students Score (5%)
• Faculty/Student Score (20%)
• Citations/Faculty Score (20%).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Higher_Education_World_University_Rankings [wikipedia.org]

You're right that the THES ranking has been criticised. You'll note that they will be using a new methodology for this autumn's table.

Re:

[Weezul]

Oops, yes, I'd forgotten exactly what they did wrong, but nevertheless everyone outside the UK basically agrees these rankings are self aggrandizing bullshit.

A more honest ranking was done by Shanghai Jiao Tong University [wikipedia.org]. In fact, the Shanghai rankings are still extremely based towards English speaking universities, although less blatantly biased towards British institutions. In all seriousness, the University of Sheffield simply does not belong in the top 100 for any world university rankings. lol

Re:

[jcupitt65]

They don't have much credibility in the UK either, hehe. The university I work at is apparently in the world's top ten, which is rather o.O.

Donkeys seeking to recruit lions

[Rogerborg]

Well, I guess if they had competent IT people, they wouldn't be looking to hire any. Seems pretty axiomatic.

Re:

[BeerCat]

Perhaps the website is the first part of the recruitment process -
"if you can hack this, then we could offer you a job as a white hat" Or something like

There are none

[h00manist]

There are no competent people, no secure or quality products, and no certain outcomes. Get over it and get to work trying to get whatever result you want, or to drinking beer. Either way, everything will end up somewhere. Try not to do it with guns, and nobody will die, that way you can try again.

Comments

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