KFUPM student team made it to the
third place in the national contest for information security held on the
sidelines of the “Information Security Conference” recently organized by King
Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).
The team leader Mansour
Al-Harethi receiving the prize
His Highness Prince Dr. Turki Bin
Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Saud, President of KACST, and the Minister of Communications
and Information Technology, Dr. Mohammed Al-Suwaiel, awarded the third place
prize and an amount of SR10,000 riyals to KFUPM team at the opening ceremony of
the Conference.
The contest is the largest
information security competition in Saudi Arabia, where 23 teams participated
in it, most of which are from the industrial sector, while the academic sector
participation was limited to only two teams.
The student team’s member Omar Al-Asmar mentioned that
the contest is similar to the global CTF competitions, where competitors engage
in 10 hours of informatics challenges, during which they discover gaps in
informational websites and win points on which the winners are determined.
He explained that entering the
competition was the idea of the students, and they received support from the
Department of computer science and information at the University. Dr. Sami Zhioua,
an assistant professor in the Department, supervised the team and provided a
training session for the team members.
Al-Asmar said that due to time constraints,
the team's preparations for the contest lasted only for one day, but the
students were keen to develop their skills individually and even though most of
the participants in the contest came from specialized companies and have long
experience in information security, and despite the lack of preparations, the
University team that consists of undergraduate students achieved great results.
He noted that all team members received
offers from a number of companies interested in information security.
Dr. Sami zhioh said the
University is working on building a team more than ready to participate in
local and international competitions starting from next semester.