Trend Micro Announces 63 Finalists Competing in the Egypt National Cyber Security – CTF Competition

Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, along with Cyber Talents, announced the finalists who will compete in the second annual Egypt’s National Cyber Security – Capture the Flag (CTF). 21 teams passed the qualification phase of the annual competition, proceeding to the finals, which will take place April 22, 2017 in Cairo.

“With the rise of malicious cyber-activity in Africa, Egypt is among the most affected African countries, especially with the evolution of mobile and cloud networks, the sharing economy, cloud information databases and the subsequent increase of cyber threats,” Ihab Moawad, VP of Trend Micro Middle East and Africa. “Collaborating with Cyber Talents on this competition is a major contribution to the cybersecurity industry in fighting cybercrime in Egypt, raising awareness of and finding solutions to the top cybersecurity challenges.”

CTF is a cybersecurity competition that aims to boost interest and employment in the industry, as well as improve overall information security in Egypt. Participants demonstrate their technical ability in the cybersecurity field by completing several tasks focused on pressing security issues faced by businesses today. The CTF competition serves as an educational practice to give participants experience in securing a machine, as well as conducting and reacting to attacks encountered in the real world.

The Qualification Phase for the Egypt’s National Cyber Security – CTF competition took place April 6-8, 2017. Participants who earned the most points qualified for the final competition. The winning teams receive USD 10,000 in cash prizes, provided by Trend Micro, and will be eligible to compete in the Trend Micro CTF competitions representing Egypt in Tokyo.

“We are working together to arm up-and-coming security professionals with the requisite experience and knowledge they’ll need to effectively secure Egyptian businesses and individuals,” said Moataz Salah CEO of Cyber Talents. “We believe we have a large pool of talent that will help evolve the Egyptian cybersecurity industry and we are looking forward to know the final winning team who will represent Egypt in other global competitions. The competition is also an opportunity for participants to be noticed and recruited by cybersecurity companies.”

Security researchers and academics also benefit from the CTF competition. The data generated through the challenges can be used as case studies to help model, predict and prevent real-world security incidents, as well as to develop solutions.

Egypt’s National Cyber Security Capture the Flag – CTF competition will take place on Saturday, April 22, 2017, at the Nile Ritz Carlton hotel in Cairo, Egypt. The CTF will be a Jeopardy style competition in which each team receives a list of challenges in different categories, such as reverse engineering, web security, digital forensics and network security, among others. For every challenge solved, the team earns a certain amount of points depending on the difficulty of the challenge.