The University of Portsmouth’s Cybercrime Awareness Clinic – which has provided cybercrime awareness advice to individuals, community groups, schools, colleges and other organisations since 2017 – has been awarded The Cyber Awareness Award at the National Cyber Awards 2020.

The clinic’s staff includes Portsmouth Online’s Dr Lisa Sugiura and Dr Vasileios Karagiannopoulos, who support the university’s Cybercrime MSc as course leader and module leader respectively.

The National Cyber Awards, sponsored by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, spotlights those committed to cyber innovation, cybercrime reduction and protecting the public online. Hampshire’s Assistant Chief Constable Ben Snuggs made the award nomination.

‘We are delighted that our partners at the University of Portsmouth won this award,’ he shared. ‘The findings and conclusions of this project have proved invaluable to informing Hampshire Constabulary’s Cyber Protect operations.’

In its three years running, the Cybercrime Awareness Clinic has delivered numerous educational workshops and seminars, and has performed extensive research within educational institutions and community groups.

It is currently involved in a variety of projects funded by the National Cyber Security Centre, the EU Commission Interreg 2 Seas and the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats.

Speaking about The Clinic, online MSc in Cybercrime module leader Dr Vasileios Karagiannopoulos said that it was "an intrinsic part of our cybercrime courses, offering practical experience and transferable skills to our undergraduate and master’s students."

If you’re passionate about understanding, predicting, and preventing cybercrime and other online deviant behaviours, our online Cybercrime MSc can give you the skills needed to pursue a career in cybersecurity: