University of Strathclyde Cybercrime Summer School 2025 - participant blog

SPRITE+ provided grants to 5 PhD students based at UK universities, covering registration, travel and accommodation to attend the 9th Strathclyde International Perspectives on Cybercrime Summer School.

Taking place from 25 – 29th August, 2025 at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, the Cybercrime Summer School covered a range of themes including:

• New models of cyber policing,

• AI cybersecurity,

• Cyber resilience.

Read on to hear from PhD students Fatemeh Faraji, Jerahmeel C. Madumere, Jessica Richards, 'Mayowa Tijani and Opeyemi Akinbohun about their experiences of attending the Strathclyde International Perspectives on Cybercrime Summer School.

Fatemeh Faraji

Attending the Research Symposium and Summer School was an excellent experience. Over the week, I was able to hear high-quality presentations on topics ranging from AI security and data privacy to cybercrime, critical infrastructure and law-enforcement interventions. The sessions broadened my understanding of how technology, policy and human factors interact in cybersecurity.

A particular highlight for me was the opportunity to meet and interact with PGR students from countries such as Canada and Germany. Discussing their research and perspectives was inspiring and helped me to see different approaches to similar problems. I also had the chance to connect with several professors working in my field and have begun following them on LinkedIn to maintain those connections.

Overall, the summer school was extremely valuable for my academic development. It expanded my horizons, gave me new ideas for my own research and career, and increased my awareness of the diverse aspects of cybercrime and cybersecurity technologies. Thank you for organising such a rich and engaging programme.

Jerahmeel C. Madumere

I would like to thank SPRITE+ for sponsoring my participation in the Summer School on Cyber Crime. It was an enriching experience that allowed me to deepen my understanding of interdisciplinary approaches to privacy, AI and security research, while also connecting with peers and experts from diverse backgrounds.

The sessions were well-structured, combining theoretical insights with practical applications, which helped me to reflect on how my own research can benefit from cross-disciplinary collaboration.

I particularly valued the interactive workshops, as they created space for open discussion and idea-sharing that I found both inspiring and applicable to my current work.

Beyond the academic learning, the Summer School also fostered valuable networking opportunities that I believe will lead to future collaborations. Overall, it has strengthened my confidence in advancing my PhD research and broadened my perspective on potential directions for impact.

Jessica Richards

The summer school was a great opportunity to learn about various areas of practical cyber security.

I especially enjoyed the talk by Jeremy Singer on CHERI, which was the most relevant to my research. But beyond that, all the different talks gave a real range. The inclusion of the Canadian and German cohorts as well contributed to diversity of opinion.

Though the formal networking opportunities were a bit limited, I gather that this is something the organisers are working on for future years.

'Mayowa Tijani

The summer school was a good opportunity to see Glasgow and experience the beauty and culture of the city. The residence provided by Sprite+ was great, my exact words on getting in were, "this feels like an Ibis Hotel — just better".

For the summer school itself, I enjoyed learning from a wide range of professors across cybersecurity, law, disinformation and artificial intelligence. As someone whose focus is on AI, disinformation and journalism, it was great to see I was not out of place in the midst of cybersecurity expert. The hands-on phishing campaign demo was a really good experience in helping me learn and understand and fix my vulnerabilities online. 

I know there's some recency bias here, but the last sessions about CNI and talking to the enemy were really enlightening and gave us some life skills beyond cybersecurity. My highlights of the summer school were the panel sessions and hands-on exercises. 

I want to seize this opportunity to thank SPRITE+ for sponsoring me and allowing me to benefit from a weeklong experience of learning, sharing and networking with experts from other parts of the world. 

Opeyemi Akinbohun

I attended the Strathclyde Cybercrime Summer School from 25 to 29 August 2025 and I really enjoyed it. I am grateful to SPRITE+ for the sponsorship that made my attendance possible.

I gained practical skills by planning, sending, and analysing a phishing campaign in a safe lab using GoPhish and MailHog. I improved at spotting deepfakes through a timed exercise and learned when provenance tools help. 

I deepened my understanding of AI security for RAG systems, AI and Law, and data rights as a research methodology. I explored ML based intrusion detection for smart factories and saw a CHERI based secure BF interpreter that showed capability security in practice. I also walked through a ransomware negotiation playbook and took part in a balanced discussion of UK age verification. 

I will apply these lessons to my PhD on smart home IoT through on device RAG, privacy by design data handling, and a lightweight IDS on my Home Assistant testbed and lastly the whole experience helped increase my networking with other researchers. Thank you once again to SPRITE+ and to the organisers.