Windhoek
FNB Namibia recently supported the 2nd Namibia National Cyber Security Competition with an amount of N$10,000. Garth Kleintjies, chief information officer of FNB Namibia, said the competition not only prepared graduates for the cyber war industry but also created awareness amongst youngsters about fraud, especially in 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 ATM, 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 holiday goers.”
The Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), Faculty of Computing and Informatics in partnership with the University of Namibia (Unam) and industry hosted the 2nd Namibia National Cyber Security Competition. The competition themed ‘Thunderbolt – Cyber Security Excellence in the 21st business environment’ saw two teams from NUST and two teams from Unam battle for top position, which did not only promise prizes, but a ticket to the international competition in the USA to be held on June 20 – 23, 2017.
This was a great platform as it enabled participants to showcase how security can be enforced or broken with innovative technologies. The competition was set up in such a way that students were given tasks to manage an IT 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 IT professionals face daily.