Two Vietnamese teams make final berth at global cyber security competition

NDO – Two Vietnamese teams will join their peers from all over the world to compete in the final round of the global cyber security competition WhiteHat Grand Prix 06, scheduled to take place online later this December.
Following the qualification round, ACEBEAR and BabyPhD from Vietnam, together with eight strong teams from the USA, Russia, the Republic of Korea, India and Germany, will vie for the top prize in the eight-hour finals, set to be held online at the competition’s website https://grandprix.whitehatvn.com/ on December 27.
Hosted by Vietnam under the theme of Vietnam Today, WhiteHat Grand Prix 06 has a format consisting of Jeopardy, Attack/Defence and WhiteHat Bug Bounty programmes, finding vulnerabilities on important information systems and popular software in Vietnam.
In the final round, after passing the Jeopardy challenge, 10 teams will enter the Attack/Defence phase in a simulated environment.

Contestants during the qualification round of the WhiteHat Grand Prix 06 in January this year. (Photo provided by the organisers).

The organisers have built a Security Management System that uses real hardware devices for teams to fight in real life situations. The mission of the teams, on the one hand, is to attack and exploit the other team's vulnerabilities in order to disable their security camera system and detect motion and surveillance lights, while at the same time protecting their own systems. Successful completion of the exam requires teams with practical skills as well as a deep understanding of infrastructure security, application security, encryption and web security.
The top 3 finishers in the finals will be rewarded with VND230 million (US$10,000), VND45 million (US$2,000) and VND23 million (US$1,000), respectively. In addition, teams have the chance to get bounties for each bug they find in the WhiteHat Bug Bounty.
Nguyen Thanh Phuc, Director of Authority of Information Security under the Ministry of Information and Communications, said: “In the work of ensuring network safety and security, experts play a key role. Contests like the WhiteHat Grand Prix help promote the development of human resources in cybersecurity in Vietnam, while affirming the country’s reputation in the international cybersecurity community.”
The WhiteHat Grand Prix was held for the first time at national level in 2014 and began to expand globally in 2015. Vietnam Today is the message that WhiteHat Grand Prix 06 wants to convey to the international community on a developing Vietnam with its positive cultural, economic, scientific and technical achievements.
The qualifying round attracted a record number of participants with 739 teams from 84 countries and territories around the world, including teams from the top 10 in the CTFTime rankings – the leading assessment and ranking platform in information security.
The contest, sponsored by the Ministry of Information and Communications, is being co-organised by the Bkav Corporation and the Authority of Information Security.

(Source: NDO)