Trio bags Dh40,000 in Dubai Police cybersecurity challenge
dubai — Three Egyptians took the top three positions at the two-day cyber security challenge organised at the Hub Zero in Citywalk to train the youth to handle cyber security threats and e-challenges.
The competition called Capture the Flag (CTF), organised by the Dubai Police, aimed to enhance and instil concepts of cybersecurity among mostly school and university students interested in modern technologies and applications.
Out of a total of 50 tech-enthusiasts from 12 countries who participated in the challenge, three Egyptians won the first three positions.
The first prize was bagged by 19-year-old university student Youssef Awad, who won Dh20,000; second position was taken by 21-year-old student Mohamed Hamouda, who won Dh15,000 and third position was taken by a working professional Ahmed Aboul Ela, who won Dh5,000.
The final set of 50 participants of CTF were shortlisted from among a total of 220 applicants after passing an online challenge.
Mohamed Hamouda, a computer science student specialising in cybersecurity at the University of Wollongong, who lost the first position by just one point, said: “The most challenging part of the competition was that I couldn’t sleep all throughout the challenge because although the timings were 5pm to 10pm on Friday but some of the challenges you could work on at home as well and you could come back on Saturday and again start from 8.30am to 8pm.
“You just need to think right and look in the right direction in cybersecurity challenges. This is my fourth such challenge. The CTF was related to mainly field of forensics where you have to look for a clue of something and set off in that direction and of course it required some programming skills as well.”
Mohamed aims to someday become a penetration tester or get into the field of digital forensics. Excited at the fact that it was all Egyptians who won the contest, Hamouda said: “Yousuf and I are also from the same city — Port Saeed. I guess we just proved what many people say about us Egyptians, that ‘Egyptians are smart,’ he added on a lighter note.
During the two-day challenge, cyber security enthusiasts had to face pre-designed cyberattacks, identifying anonymous cyber threats, conquering those attacks, which intend to cause harm to individuals, their belongings and penetrate their privacy.
Winners of the cybersecurity challenge were announced during the closing ceremony on Saturday at 7pm, in the presence of Brigadier Jamal Salem Al Jalaf, director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the Dubai Police.