2018-07-11Staff Report 2 Staff Reporter WINDHOEK - Preceding the first ever international competition of the International Cyber Defence Collegiate Invitational (ICCDI), to be co-hosted by Namibia and the United States of America, the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) launched the Namibia National Cyber Security pre-competition at NUST last week. The actual two-day event took place on July 6 and 7, 2018. According to Dr Fungai Bhunu Shava, a Senior Computer Science Lecturer at NUST, the competition is aimed to provide students with real world challenges faced while maintaining corporate networks that cannot be replicated in a typical classroom. He explained that the competition consisted of student teams who were tasked to secure and defend a virtual corporate or industrial network composed of Windows and Linux operating systems along with routers and switches. Professional penetration testers acted as hostile hackers against whom the students had to defend while administering the regular day-to-day tasks of the network. Shava added that the competition resulted in better trained students and prepared them for graduation and eventually for the work environment. He also described the competition as a platform to enhance teamwork, collaboration, interpersonal skills and problem-solving skills. The competition was also seen as an opportunity to provide the industry with an opportunity to witness their future experts at work, solving real work problems simulated in a business like environment. To support the successfully hosting of the competition, MTC donated N$60 000, which the company described as the start of a possible future partnership with NUST aimed towards exploration and unearthing of new innovation and ideas between the two entities. According to Patrick Mushimba, MTC’s IT General Manager, “our people have become quite active on internet, hence the security on the cyber space is quite crucial. We therefore, as MTC, have the responsibility to ensure that whenever our customers surf the internet, their data and information is safe and protected, hence our support for the development of skilled cyber defenders. And we strongly believe that collaborating with NUST can go a long way in the invention of tools and solutions for a secure internet experiences,” expressed Mushimba. 2018-07-11Staff Report 2
