Sri Lankan team moves ahead in Global CyberLympics

Global CyberLympics is an international cybersecurity competition. There are teams from various countries participating in the competition.  The competition is carried out in different parts of the world including North America, Europe, Africa, South America and Middle-east and the Asia Pacific. It is hosted by the International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council), a member-based organisation that certifies individuals in e-business and information security skills and supported by the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Sri Lanka CERT|CC the national CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team) which acts as the focal point for cyber security in Sri Lanka, as part of its efforts to recognise local talent and provide the necessary platform to practise the skills of cybersecurity was involved in forming a team and preparing it for the competition. The sponsor for the team was the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL). TRCSL also contributed to the success of the team by providing the necessary connectivity infrastructure and location for the team members to attend the CyberLympics

The team, named ‘WhiteHat’ is one of three teams fielded from Sri Lanka and the only team from the country to progress to the third round of the competition. WhiteHat consists of six team members from various organisations sharing the same passion for information security. WhiteHat team members hold security qualifications such as CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker), CHFI (Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), an independent information security certification governed by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC)² and CCNA Security administered by Cisco Systems. The WhiteHat team consists of Roshan Chandraguptha (Team Captain) – Information Security Engineer, Sri Lanka CERT, Kanishka Yapa – Information Security Engineer, Sri Lanka CERT, Dharshin De Silva – Senior Systems Engineer (Information Security), Millenium IT, Chathura Abeydeera – Information Security/Forensics Consultant, Buddhika Gamage – Information Security Engineer, LankaCom Services (Pvt.) Ltd. and Nimantha Wickremasinghe – Trainee Systems Engineer, IFS R&D Limited.

The first round of the competition tested the forensic analysis skills of the teams, while the second round tested their penetration testing skills. The upcoming third round will test the team’s computer network defence capabilities and if it qualifies for the finals, the team will face the toughest round which is called ‘Capture the Flag’. The final round will permit competing teams to use whatever network assessment tools are available to them to compromise and control a series of target hosts.  The other teams from the Asia Pacific region qualifying for round three of the competition are from Russia, Australia and Indonesia. The top teams from each region in round three will compete in the 2012 Global CyberLympics Security Challenge, World Finals which will be held at Hacker Halted on 29 October in Miami Florida USA.