Join hands to build an excellent information security workforce

On October 19, in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Vietnam Information Security Association - VNISA hosted the final round of the contest 'ASEAN Students with Information Security 2024', with the participation of 83 teams, including 56 Vietnamese student teams and 27 student teams from 9 other ASEAN countries, divided into 2 groups A and B.

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VNISA Chairman Nguyen Thanh Hung hopes that the competition will attract more and more ASEAN students to participate, providing an opportunity for young people to further improve their professional qualifications. Photo: M. Son

Speaking at the closing ceremony and awarding ceremony for the teams in Hanoi, former Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Hung, Chairman of VNISA, affirmed that contributing to the development of information security human resources in Vietnam is an important orientation of the Association, and the annual 'ASEAN Students with Information Security' competition is an activity to materialize this orientation.

From the perspective of the unit that has accompanied the competition through 17 seasons, Viettel representative, Deputy Director of Viettel Cyber ​​Security Le Quang Ha commented that the competition has increasingly expanded in scale and improved in quality, and has now truly become a useful playground, contributing to discovering and nurturing young talents in the field of information security not only in Vietnam but also in the region.

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Mr. Tran Quang Hung, Deputy Director of the Department of Information Security, spoke at the closing ceremony and award ceremony of the contest 'ASEAN Students with Information Security 2024'. Photo: M.Son

As a former participant in the contest, Deputy Director of the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications) Tran Quang Hung shared his proud feelings when Vietnam was mentioned many times at the Regional Cyber ​​Security Week held in Singapore recently, because Vietnam is among the leading countries in the Global Cyber ​​Security Index - GCI and has an excellent cyber security and safety workforce, not inferior to any country in the ASEAN region.

“With these achievements, the Ministry of Information and Communications highly appreciates and thanks VNISA and information security enterprises for always accompanying and joining hands to train a force of excellent network information security engineers and experts, thereby protecting Vietnam's prosperity in cyberspace,” Mr. Tran Quang Hung commented.

6 international teams won the 17th competition

According to VNISA Vice President Khong Huy Hung, in the 17th edition and the 6th edition open to all ASEAN students, the competition had a record number of teams and contestants. The preliminary round saw the participation of 248 teams and nearly 1,000 students from 63 universities and colleges in 10 ASEAN countries.

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A new feature of the competition is the organization of a final round with 2 groups to create more opportunities for students to improve their information security knowledge and skills. Photo: TH

The competition time is the same from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on October 19, but the two groups have different competition content, in which 20 groups A compete in direct attack and defense, while 63 groups B compete in the themed challenge - Jeopardy.

At the summary event held simultaneously in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City on the afternoon of October 19, the Organizing Committee awarded 15 Group A prizes including 1 First prize, 2 Second prizes, 3 Third prizes, 9 Consolation prizes; 24 Group B prizes, with 1 First prize, 3 Second prizes, 5 Third prizes and 15 Consolation prizes.

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VNISA Chairman Nguyen Thanh Hung and Major General Tran Xuan Nam, Deputy Director of the Military Technical Academy, awarded the first prize of Group A to team KMA.0range from the Cryptography Technical Academy. Photo: M.Son

Specifically, in Group A, the first prize was awarded to team KMA.0range of the Cryptography Technology Academy. KMA.Akatsuki from the Ho Chi Minh City Cryptography Technology Academy Branch and meowcats of the National University of Singapore were the two student teams that won the second prize. Teams SSH1141 (Hanoi University of Science and Technology), Hanni Fanclub (Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology) and PTIT.Celebi (Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology) won the third prize in this competition.

For Group B, the first prize team is UIT.Efficiency from Ho Chi Minh City University of Information Technology; the 3 second prize teams include PwnlyFans (Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology), KMA.404_Not_Found (Cryptography Academy) and KMA.COAT (Ho Chi Minh City Cryptography Academy Branch).

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The Academy of Posts and Telecommunications Technology and Hanoi University of Science and Technology are the two schools with teams winning third prize in Group A of the 'ASEAN Students with Information Security 2024' competition. Photo: M.Son

Notably, this year's final round saw 6 student teams from other ASEAN countries win awards. Specifically, in addition to the second prize in Group A by the meowcats team from the National University of Singapore, there was also the third prize in Group B by the 'Gajah Siber' team (ITB - Indonesia) and the 4 teams HCS (ITS - Indonesia), 'EICARSTANDARDANTIVIRUS' (National University of Singapore), 'True flag is the flag we find along the journey' (IPB - Indonesia), Hamnoinoi (RPCA - Thailand) all won the Encouragement prize in Group B.

Gradually forming a generation of Vietnamese information security students with very high quality . The results achieved by Vietnamese student teams in the "HackTheon Sejong" competition continue to affirm the quality of information security training in Vietnam, gradually forming a generation of students with very high quality, confident to compete in the international arena.