Jonas Pertschy, who is studying for an MSc in Cyber Security at Lancaster, was one of just three people of 130 attendees to successfully hack into a child’s toy called a Furby at the Inter-Ace competition held at the University of Cambridge.

A Furby is a cuddly toy that can connect to the Internet allowing parents to communicate to their children through phone apps. However, this connectivity also makes them vulnerable to attacks.

Mr Pertschy was able to hack into the Furby in the fastest time – seven minutes and 10 seconds – and he replaced the toy’s firmware and was able to display an animation on the device’s eyes.

By hacking into devices, students display skills and knowledge that will be needed to defend against malicious attacks while working in the cyber security industry.

Mr Pertschy won a PlayStation 4 games console and the opportunity to sit among leading academics and industry executives at a ceremonial dinner at the end of competition.

He said: "The competition was a fantastic experience and I learned a lot. I met many very interesting people from academia and industry.

“The key to winning the challenge was the Lancaster Cybersecurity master program and the time I spent in the university labs preparing for my Offensive Security Certified Professional certification. I want to thank my lecturers Joseph Gardiner and Bingsheng Zhang for their expertise offered during the penetration testing lectures."

Mr Pertschy, who hopes for a career in the cyber security industry, was one of two teams comprising a total of eight students from Lancaster University Ethical Hacking Group to participate in the Inter-Ace competition, which is now in its third year.

Dr Antonios Gouglidis, lecturer in cyber security at Lancaster University, said: “Jonas is a self-motivated and highly-skilled student, always looking for challenges. He took the opportunity to demonstrate his cyber security skills in a challenge by Context IS at the Inter-ACE 2018 event, where he successfully hacked a Furby toy in record time and won the challenge prize – a great achievement.

“Our two teams competed against the best cyber security student teams in the UK. The competition was really high this year, with approximately 32 teams participating from 18 universities. Both our teams performed quite well and placed very close to the top ten in the scoreboard - 11th and 13th.

“Inter-ACE 2018 was an exciting and challenging event, and a great learning experience for all.”

Established through the UK’s National Cyber Security Strategy and supported by GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, the competition is sponsored by Microsoft, BT, Palo Alto and Context IS.

The Lancaster teams were sponsored by Holker IT and Fujitsu.