Winners announced for the 2012 BT Information Security Journalism awards

The winners of the 2012 BT Information Security Journalism Awards were announced today by Ray Stanton, Vice President, BT Advise, BT Global Services, and fellow members of a prestigious judging panel. This year, the top award – Information Security Journalist of the Year – went to Tom Brewster from TechWeekEurope, who impressed the judges with a number of heavyweight features and investigations on topics including the fight against botnets, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) security at universities, and the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) market. 

The Guardian’s Nick Hopkins scooped the Best Information Security News Story of the Year award for his article “Militarisation of cyberspace: how the global power struggle moved online”, while Danny Bradbury walked away with two top prizes for articles published in Infosecurity. These included Best Overall Information Security Feature Article of the Year for “The US vs. China: a very civil (cyber) war” and Best Cybercrime Feature of the Year for “Follow the money: the economics of fake anti-virus”.

In the specialist feature categories, Misha Glenny was the winner of the new Best Investigative Feature of the Year award for his article “Cybercrime: is it out of control?” for The Guardian and John Leyden picked up Best Privacy Feature of the Year for his article “Mobile app privacy: You get what you pay for” published in The Register.

Geoff White and Benjamin Cohen became the first winners of the new Best Security Broadcast Feature/News Story of the Year award for their Channel 4 News package on security issues with contactless payment cards.

Ray Stanton presented the BT Enigma Award to New Scientist’s Paul Marks in recognition of his outstanding and consistent contribution to information security journalism.

Ray Stanton, Vice President, BT Advise, BT Global Services, and Chairman of the judging panel, said: “Once again enormous credit should go to all of our shortlisted journalists. Each has demonstrated an ability to write in an accessible and engaging way, ask difficult questions, uncover emerging trends and move the security debate forward.

“BT is committed to improving information security in the UK and beyond, from home users through to multi-national organisations. These awards are a testament to the vital role that journalism plays in raising awareness among businesses and the public about the issues surrounding security and the solutions that can be implemented to mitigate the risks.”

Joining Ray Stanton on the judging panel and in presenting the awards were (in alphabetical order): Dr. Robert Coles, CISO & Head of Digital Risk & Security, National Grid; Ron Condon, journalist; Graham Edwards, Head of Group Information Risk, Centrica Plc; Malcolm Marshall, Global Partner in Charge of Information Protection Services, KPMG LLP; and Professor Fred Piper, Information Security Group, Royal Holloway, University of London.

The winners were presented with their awards at a ceremony in central London. The full shortlists for each category were as follows:
• Information Security Journalist of the Year: Tom Brewster (TechWeekEurope – winner), Wendy M. Grossman (Infosecurity/Newswireless.net/ORGzine), Katia Moskvitch (BBC News), Davey Winder (PC Pro)
• Best Information Security News Story of the Year: Nick Hopkins (The Guardian – winner), Jacob Aron (New Scientist), Nicole Kobie (PC Pro), Katia Moskvitch (BBC News)
• Best Overall Information Security Feature Article of the Year: Danny Bradbury (Infosecurity – winner), Drew Amorosi (Infosecurity), Misha Glenny (Financial Times), Paul Marks (New Scientist)
• Best Privacy Feature of the Year: John Leyden (The Register – winner), Sally Adee (New Scientist), Danny Bradbury (Infosecurity), Stewart Mitchell (PC Pro)
• Best Cybercrime Feature of the Year: Danny Bradbury (Infosecurity – winner), Tom Brewster (IT Pro), Misha Glenny (Wired), Wendy M. Grossman (Infosecurity)
• Best Investigative Feature of the Year: Misha Glenny (The Guardian – winner), Drew Amorosi (Infosecurity), Danny Bradbury (The Register), Tom Brewster (TechWeekEurope)
• Best Security Broadcast Feature/News Story of the Year: Benjamin Cohen and Geoff White (Channel 4 News – winner), Ben Ando (BBC One o’clock news), Katie Stallard (Sky News)
• BT Enigma Award: Paul Marks (New Scientist – winner)

ENDS