Hello once again from Immersive HQ where we are preparing to host our next in-person community meetup tomorrow (May 7th). If you'd like to join us for another evening of professional networking and cybersecurity talks please RSVP Here.

🎁 Community Challenge Season 1 Finale

ICYMI yesterday we announced an exciting end to Season 1 of the Human Connection Challenge with some great prizes up for grabs including:

🥇 Tickets, Flights & Accommodation to an Immersive Summit in NYC or London

🥈 2 x PlayStation®5 Consoles

🥉 10 x Apple AirPods or JBL Headphones

👕 Much coveted Immersive swag and goodies!

You can read all about the competition (including full terms and conditions) here.

🏆 The Human Connection Challenge

Over 300 of you attempted this month's challenge, and 22 completed it before the deadline!

🥇 First to Finish

Once again steven​ completed the lab just a few hours after it's release!

⏱️ Fastest to Complete

Markus​  was the fastest to complete in 1 hour 20 minutes.

🎯 Most Accurate

Despite the difficulty, the following members all got 100% accuracy in their first attempt: 

barney​ autom8on​ CyberSharpe​ IotS2024​ edgarloredo​ Markus​ CBAM964​ Xat​ BigChungus​ Al13nz​ steven​ 

💪 Most Persistent

The most persistent also goes to steven​ who spent nearly 9 hours in total in the lab... what were you up to in there?

Congratulations to all of our winners! If you haven't completed it yet you can find the walkthrough here. And remember, for every challenge lab that you have completed by 2nd June you get an extra entry in the Season Finale Prize Draw! 

📰 Community Updates

Here are some of my favourite community articles from the last month:

The Softer Side: Non-technical Benefits to Technical Team Exercises

It can be easy to focus readiness programs solely on individual upskilling and technical capability, but we rarely use these skills in isolation in real-world situations. In this article JennyLam​ discusses how technical exercising can be an effective way of taking those skills to the next level, applying them to different scenarios and less-than-ideal circumstances.

Decoding Coding: Picking a Language

In this article, BarnyStewart​ provides guidance and tips for anyone interested in coding who isn’t a professional developer. The first step in the coding journey is picking a language, and this article will take you through the options.

An Ounce of Prevention Beats a Pound of Postmortem with Supply Chain Security

EllaBendrickChartier​'s latest article dissects the hidden dangers in your supply chain, from compromised tools to vendor vulnerabilities, and shows you how to build a proactive security culture with Immersive Labs and Crisis Simulations.

Secure Code Comments: One Easy Way to Steward Your Application Security Culture

Application Security Content Engineer RobertKlentzeris​ explores how incorporating security-focused comments into code can elevate developers' skills, improve team security awareness, and foster a proactive security culture within the software development lifecycle. Check out the Find the Flaw exercise to test your skills.

🙌 Special Shout Outs

Please join me in thanking this month's most helpful members in our Help & Support Forum​.

If you'd like to see your name here one day, head on over to the forum and answer a question.

🔮 Looking Forward

Did you hear about the Immersive Cyber Resilience Awards 2025? Read on to learn how you can qualify for nine different awards this October.

We are also looking forward to the next Labs Live event on 15th May. In this webinar, MattParven​,​ Principal Security Engineer & Cloud Security SME will talk you through one of our cloud computing labs as he tackles it live!

Finally, we want to hear from you! Please give us your feedback on your community experience and let us know what else you'd like to see.

See you in the community soon!

Kieran