28 October 2021

17 students of the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Convergent Media and Communication Technology programme, along with five teachers of the School of Communication, including Professor Trevor Siu, Dr Keith Cheung, Dr Sammy Hu, Ms Glacial Cheng and Ms Doris Law, visited Cerberus Security Limited, one of the cyber security centres in Hong Kong, on 28 October 2021. Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Cerberus Security Limited, in addition to arranging teachers and students to visit the cyber security centre, the company also arranged for Mr Ronald Pong, CEO of the cyber security company Nexusguard Consulting Limited, to give a sharing to the teachers and students.

Mr Pong is a well-known expert in cyber security with over 25 years’ experience in the field. His expertise includes cryptography, hacker investigation and computer forensic technology. He has worked with various financial companies, large commercial organisations, legal and accounting sectors and also government law enforcement agencies in Asia-Pacific, providing them with information security consulting services and related professional training.

Mr Pong first briefly introduced the company’s background, operation, and its business models. He then led teachers and students to their cyber security operation centre and explained to them in detail the daily operation of the centre. During his sharing, Mr Pong introduced to teachers and students some complex ideas, including the major work and operating models of the centre, and shared cases of business partners, in a lively and interesting way. Students were immensely fascinated. He mentioned that while the Internet had brought conveniences to our lives, we must be wary of its potential detrimental impacts, such as personal information or data being stolen easily, the increasing use of electronic currency for convenience leading to overspending, and falling victim to online frauds, etc. He advised students to take care of their personal information and data when using computers or smart phones and to find out more about network security so as to protect their rights and avoid unnecessary losses. The visit ended with a Q&A session, during which Mr Pong answered many of the students’ questions about smartphones, applications and hacking issues.

Since network security issues are becoming more prevalent in our daily lives, the public should learn more about the importance of network security. The visit not only heightened students’ awareness of cyber security, but also strengthened their understanding of the Internet, big data, hacking, virtual banking, etc, and was overall a fruitful experience for the students.