WINDHOEK – Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) hosted the fourth National Cyber Security Competition with Green Enterprise Solutions as an industry and knowledge partner. The competition aims at creating awareness for cyber security and at the same time teach and learn from each other.
The Namibia National Cyber Security Competition (NNCSC) was held on October 5. This was the fourth time the NNCSC event was held. The competition rules are as follows: there is a defending team and an attacking or hacking team. The ‘defending’ team were all students from various universities and colleges. The attacking or hacking team were industry professionals. The hackers are all industry experts, both from the private and public sectors. The defending team were tasked with gathering information and then carrying out specific tasks or injects. The aim of the hackers was to infiltrate and create chaos in the daily IT operations of an organisation. The defending team needed to keep systems running, while deflecting and stopping the attacks and hacks from doing any damage attack. Basically, continuing to carry out the activities of a system administrator (sysadmin) in any organisation.
The attacking team really had a fight on their hands this year. The bar has been raised each year of the competition and this year there was once again a marked improvement. The International competition in July taught the participants of the NNCSC a lot and this was the reason that things got difficult for the attackers.
Eventually the winning team came from NUST. This team was made up of the same members that made up the international team that competed in July 2018. The team struggled in the international competition, but redeemed themselves by taking 1st place, best defending team and best team collaboration.
“This competition is clearly all about learning and creating awareness and the need for cyber security. This is a learning experience for all involved in IT, right here in Namibia, and we encourage more teams to enter in the coming years. Overall, this creates better security professionals and gets students ready for the real world with real experience,” the organisers say.
The object is to get computer users to become aware of cyber security, hacking and how to protect themselves against real and potential threats. Getting users to be conscious of online threats as early as possible creates savvy online users that keep themselves, their data and the organisations they work for safe. The aim is to learn, teach, help and ultimately create better computer administrators, with knowledge of cyber threats.
Green Enterprise Solutions is a great fan of this initiative and has been involved as a partner for some time now. Llewellyn le Hané, founder of Green Enterprise Solutions, said: “At Green we feel strongly about creating awareness and educating Namibia and Namibians about cyber threats and hacking, which is why Green supports this fantastic initiative.” He continued: “We will continue to support NUST and the other participants of NNCSC in the future and we look forward to creating security experts and making sure Namibia’s ICT-security future is in safe hands.”