Ever wondered how hacking actually works?
Come find out.
Open to all UWL students. Any course, any level. No experience needed.
For the curious. No technical background required.
We start with something that doesn't feel like work.
A CTF Taster Night. Teams solve puzzles together. Find hidden information. Figure out how websites work. If you have never done anything like this before, this is exactly where to start.
Then we introduce you to Sam.
Sam is a business owner who taught himself just enough code to build his own website. Along the way, he makes mistakes that millions of real developers make every day. In the first mission, he hides a password inside his own website's source code, visible to anyone who knows where to look. You find it. He learns. He adds JavaScript to make it more secure. You learn to work around that too.
It feels like a game. But every flaw you find is a real vulnerability that exists on real websites right now.
That is HackThisSite. It is the first of many weekly challenges.
You do not need to be technical to start. You just need to be curious.
For those who want to turn this into a career.
A Security+ certified member runs weekly sessions every Monday after 4pm, covering every exam domain from scratch, sharing personal certified notes and free resources. That training normally costs anywhere from £700 to over £3,000 in London. The exam voucher is another £233 to £262 plus VAT. Here, it is all included with membership.
Members already get 30 percent off the exam voucher just by being part of the society. On top of that, the President is actively working to bring in sponsors to cover the remaining cost for members entirely. No promises yet, but that is the goal.
Professionals with Security+ in the UK earn between £40,000 and £70,000 on average, with senior roles going higher. Security+ is often the filter employers use before they even read your CV properly. We make sure you have it.
For everyone, regardless of where you start.
You will get hands-on with the tools and platforms that real security teams use. You will analyse live network traffic with Wireshark. You will build your own Security Operations Centre using Security Onion, the same open source platform used by professionals. You will do digital forensics with Autopsy and Volatility, reconstructing what happened after a breach. You will understand Active Directory, the system at the heart of almost every corporate network, and learn how attackers think and how to defend against them.
You will build a portfolio. Every challenge you complete, you write up. By the end, the best ten are selected and structured into a professional document. You can attach it to a job application or bring it to an interview and say, here is what I have done.
You will get a completion certificate.
You will know how systems work, how they break, and how to protect them.
How the programme runs.
Weekly Security+ session every Monday after 4pm. Mid-week hands-on workshop or event. Weekly practical challenge using platforms like TryHackMe, HackTheBox, VulnHub, OverTheWire, and PortSwigger.
Events across the year include CTF Taster Night, HackThisSite missions, Web Security Fundamentals, Build a Home SOC, Wireshark Deep Dive, SIEM Workshop, Red vs Blue Live Match, Digital Forensics Challenge, Active Directory Security, Malware Analysis, Threat Hunting, Purple Team Exercise, CTF Tournament, 24-Hour Hackathon, guest speakers from industry, and sponsor sessions with live job opportunities.
If you don't get a response from committee members within 2 weeks from when you have communicated with them. You can reach out to the society coordinator for further assistance if needed.
Society Coordinator: Callie Jewell