The Hipster Research Project

Empowering small to medium enterprises to tackle security and privacy challenges in software development

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The Hipster Research Project

The Hipster Project empowers small to medium enterprises in tackling complex security and privacy challenges. Get free support for your health device software development or join us for insightful discussions. If you're working in development, security, or product management for connected device software, contact us for free support to help your teams improve.

Security and Privacy problems are often complex and tricky to identify. The Hipster project (Health IoT Privacy and Security Transferred to Engineering Requirements) explores how software development teams and product managers can work together to identify such problems, and to use industry-wide knowledge to decide which problems to address and how best to address them.

We deliver workshops and training days to help teams make more effective decisions about security. We invite you to get in touch about our upcoming dates and events.

Introduction to Hipster

This video introduces the project and explores the motivation and how our workshops can help.

Gallery

Take a look at some of our Hipster Activities over the last 18 months

Lancaster Castle

New Adventures in Health Tech Product Development

Lancaster Castle played host to our inaugural Hipster Project event, "New Adventures in Health Tech Product Development". Castles symbolise protection and safety, so this was the perfect location to showcase our research which strives to help developers and product owners better secure their products and safeguard their users in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

An image of a group of people working around a desk

Hipster Workshop Taster Session

Attendees came together for a dynamic workshop taster session. They had the chance to actively trial our cutting-edge approach to threat and risk assessment, and it was fantastic to see them getting stuck into the process we have designed. Our approach is hands-on and interactive to get everyone involved in discussion and exploration around threat and risk.

New Adventures in Agile Development at the DiSH!

The Greater Manchester Digital Security Hub (DiSH) is a fantastic initiative bringing together experts from academia and the public and private sectors to help digital security startups in Greater Manchester. Lancaster University is the lead academic partner in the consortium that operates DiSH. With it's central mission being to help digital startups to innovate and thrive, this was a very fitting location to host another of our Hipster workshops.

Workshop Session at the DiSH

One of the most valuable elements of the Hipster approach is the discussion the process facilitates. Whether a student, product owner, or software developer, everyone's perspective brings something new and valuable to the table.

New Adventures in Agile Development at the DiSH

We loved the DiSH so much that we went back to host our next event there, New Adventures in Agile Development. Building on the successes of our first event at Lancaster Castle, we wanted to get the Hipster message out even further into the developer community. We had a series of expert speakers sharing their insights on risk, cyber threat intelligence, and the importance of ensuring digital devices keep their users safe. Attendees then took part in our interactive workshop to learn the Hipster approach to improving security decision-making!

Saskia Coplans: Do's and Don'ts of Outsourcing

Saskia Coplans gave a fantastic talk and told us about her experiences of outsourcing development for a healthcare app. She shared a fascinating experiment she conducted to test just how insecure the results could be! Saskia also gave us some top advice on how to manage outsourcing and boost security to ensure you don't make apps that can harm people.

Agile Manchester 2023!

We had the pleasure of leading a workshop at the Agile Manchester conference. Designed with agile developers in mind, this was the perfect conference for the Hipster Team to showcase the leading-edge research we have been doing.

Ruthless Planning for Security at Agile Manchester

Our 90 minute session gave attendees the opportunity to try out the Hipster approach to risk and threat assessment in a collaborative environment. Each group had their own unique dynamic, bringing lots of ideas and perspectives to the table.

Effective Cyber Threat and Risk Assessment

Professor Dan Prince leads our first Cyber Threat and Risk Developer Training Day. Throughout the day, participants were equipped with essential knowledge and methods in cyber threat and risk assessment. Interactive exercises, complemented by predefined examples, enabled us to delve into the world of technical and business risk exploration. This approach fostered a creative exploration of both dimensions, resulting in a deeper understanding of potential risks and their implications.

Cyber Threat and Risk Developer Training

The Cyber Threat and Risk Developer Training package builds on two years of Hipster Project research. Delivered in partnership with Barclays Eagle Labs and Plexal, the course is designed to help developers navigate the landscape of security threats and risks; empowering them to consider the causal chain of impact when assessing risk - from threat actor, to customer, to their own businesses. Here we have our inaugural cohort at DiSH Manchester in June!

More about the Project