People in cybersecurity do not look at websites like other people do: they can identify the little details that can expose the website’s owners to security threats.
In her day-to-day life as Senior Officer, Cybersecurity Assurance at Safaricom, Diana Opanga is interested in those who are likely to see vulnerabilities in the company’s websites.
She is in charge of The Bug Bounty Program, which offers rewards to cybersecurity researchers who identify vulnerabilities in Safaricom’s online assets that the team can then solve and make things more secure.
Her mission with the program is to get the young hackers to use their skills for good rather than bad work.
Recently, Diana helped organize Capture the Flag, a competition where university students got a chance to test their ethical hacking skills on real-world challenges.
“So basically, what Capture the Flag challenge is it’s a mock scenario of real life, let’s say vulnerability. So what our team does is we look at a vulnerability and try replicate it to a point where you as the participant, are able to identify the vulnerability and go get a flag. Once you identify the vulnerability, there’s a flag at the end, a unique code where you submit to our portal, and then you get the points,” said Diana.
The CTF challenge was targeting early graduates and university students and to inculcate in them skills that they will need to navigate the cybersecurity landscape.
“Not many people understand what cybersecurity does, and if you can embed that skill early on from, let’s say, university students, they’re able to understand what the world of cybersecurity requires you to be doing,” said Diana.
“Mentorship in cyber security is important just to guide the students. Handhold them as they prepare to join the industry, introduce them to the right skills, both technical and soft skills, help them build their CVs,” added Tracy Makoma, Principal officer, Cyber Security GRC team, Safaricom.
The winners of this year’s Capture the Flag were Alvin Karichu, Robert Isaiah and Lentai Kakai from the team named Open Sesame.
Their reward was KES45,000.
Through such forums, Safaricom is preparing the next set of techies for the world.
Watch the video below to see how the Capture the Flag event went.
