This archive report was first published on 28 October 2019.
Kenya's cybersecurity landscape is increasingly becoming a cause for concern, with the rise of young and vicious hackers in universities.
According to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), 43 students from 10 universities were recognized for their exceptional skills at the CyberSecurity Hackathon held at Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi on October 25th.
The hackathon, which was part of the 2019 National Cyber Security Conference, aimed to enhance skill sets in the provision of cyber solutions and problem-solving skills in the online space.
The students were selected in the 'Capture the flag' challenge, a cyber-security competition where participants solved computer security problems by hacking into or defending computer systems.
The challenge was divided into two categories – ethical hacking and digital forensics. In ethical hacking, Strathmore University emerged as the winner, followed by KCA University and Meru University of Science and Technology.
In digital forensics, the University of Nairobi was declared the best, followed by Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in the second position, and another team from the UoN emerged third.
Communications Authority acting Director General Ms Mercy Wanjau said the initiative has provided a great forum for interaction and knowledge exchange amongst cyber security enthusiasts in academia and the industry.
Ms. Wanjau noted, “The initiative has provided a great forum for interaction and knowledge exchange amongst cyber security enthusiasts in academia and the industry.”
She added, “As an Authority, we are happy that through this hackathon, we have adequately sparked conversations on cybersecurity and hopefully more and more Kenyans will be alert as they engage on their favorite platforms,”
During the period of April – June 2019, the National Kenya Computer Incident Response Team – Coordination Centre (National KE-CIRT/CC) detected 26.6 million cyber threat events as compared to 11.3 million cyber threat events detected in the period of Jan- March 2019.
The increase in cyber threat events detected is attributed to the global increase in malware including ransomware attacks during this period.
