CERT to host hacking challenge, security quiz

The Hacking Challenge will be held at the ICTA premises on 13 October while the Security Quiz will be held at Hotel Renuka Colombo 3, on 14 October

Hacking or gaining access to computer file or network illegally or without authorisation has become a serious cybercrime all over the world.

The Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Sri Lanka CERT), a fully owned subsidiary of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), has taken steps to stall the problem. In its latest move, the Sri Lanka CERT Coordination Centre (Sri Lanka CERT | CC), in conjunction with ICTA, will host a Hacking Challenge and a Security Quiz this week.

The Hacking Challenge will be held at the ICTA premises on 13 October while the Security Quiz will be held at Hotel Renuka Colombo 3 on 14 October.

Speaking about the ‘Hacking Challenge’ a senior Sri Lanka CERT spokesperson said that the exercise had two objectives. “One is to allow penetration testing enthusiasts to measure their skills in a simulated environment, free of legal repercussions; the other objective is to allow these enthusiasts to be rewarded, if they rack up the highest points according to the scoring system”, the Sri Lanka CERT spokesperson said. “The winning team will be awarded Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) training and certification voucher courtesy of International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council)”, the Sri Lanka CERT spokesperson said urging participation in the exercise.

Speaking about the Security Quiz the Sri Lanka CERT spokesperson said that the target group of the Security Quiz would be students in tertiary education institutions. “The Security Quiz  will be conducted over eight rounds, each round comprising questions from a specialised security area”, the Sri Lanka CERT spokesperson said explaining the modus operandi of the conducting of the quiz. Speaking about what was in store for the winners, the Sri Lanka CERT spokesperson said: “Round winners in this Quiz will be given attractive prizes; the overall winners stand to win mobile phones courtesy of Softlogic and CEH training vouchers courtesy of EC-Council”. The quize aims to encourage university students, the next generation of workers in the country, to start thinking of security as an integral part of their lives.

The flagship event, the fourth Annual National Conference, will be held at Cinnamon Lakeside, Colombo followed by a gala dinner and awards night, on 19 October.

Two technical workshops will be held at the same venue on 20 and 21 October respectively. The workshops will be themed “Virtualisation, Cloud computing and the next generation of enterprise architecture” and “Network and Web traffic analysis”, respectively.

These events constitute the annual Cyber Security Week Programme, CSW_2011, which is the fourth such consecutive programme conducted by Sri Lanka CERT. Initiated in 2008, the objectives of the CSW programme are to build awareness and update knowledge on key security areas that matter both locally and globally, commercially and personally, Understand emerging technologies and the security issues pertinent to those technologies and to provide a meeting ground for like minded individuals with a special interest in information security to forge alliances, share knowledge and experience and build consensus on security issues of the day.

Sri Lanka CERT is mandated with the protection of Information and Information Systems within the state sector, particularly in regard to the e-Sri Lanka initiative. At the same time Sri Lanka CERT is also mandated to extend its services to the private sector and general public. It is a full member of the Asia Pacifice CERT and Forum of Incident Response Security Teams (FIRST) associations. Sri Lanka CERT also assists the public by combating common cyber security incidents such as Facebook and webmail account compromise.

More information on the event could be obtained via www.cert.gov.lk.

Related useful information in the context of the e-Sri Lanka initiative could be had by visiting www.icta.lk.

The International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) is a member-supported professional organisation headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) is the best-known certification of the EC-Council.