FNB Namibia backs cyber security competitionThe war against cyber fraud FNB Namibia recently supported the second national cyber security competition. FNB Namibia recently sponsored the second Namibia national cyber security competition to the tune of N$10000.Garth Kleintjies, chief information officer of FNB Namibia, said the competition not only prepared graduates for the cyber war industry but also created awareness among youngsters about fraud, especially in the electronic space.
“We know that Namibia is a top destination in Africa for cybercrime and far too often do we hear of people having fallen prey to fraudsters, be it at an automatic teller machine, or a phishing scheme or any of the other numerous fraudulent activities out there.
“Let us remain vigilant, especially at this time of the year when fraudsters become active again targeting people''s bonuses and taking advantage of the more relaxed attitude of holidaymakers.”
The Namibia University of Science and Technology''s Faculty of Computing and Informatics, in partnership with the University of Namibia, and the IT industry, hosted the second Namibia national cyber security competition.
The competition saw two teams from NUST and two teams from Unam battle for the top position. First prize included a ticket to the international competition in the USA to be held on 20 to 23 June 2017.
This was a great platform as it enabled participants to showcase how security can be enforced or broken in innovative technologies. The competition was set up in such a way that students were given tasks to manage an information technology system that was already set up.
Their task for the day was to maintain and secure the system from being accessed by hackers; these were seasoned industry practitioners who served as the black team, in real time. They did this for a gruelling eight hours.
The teams scored points based on their ability to maintain availability of key network services necessary to keep their business up and running, and lost points when their essential business services were attacked, a typical scenario that information technology professionals face daily.
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