Abu Dhabi pavilion at Gitex gets cracking with ethical hacking event

The Abu Dhabi Government pavilion at Gitex Global hosted the ‘Capture the Flag’, an ethical in-person hacking event.

The first round of the competition saw more than 600 teams take part in the online round. The top five teams from the first round are competing in the final round over five days at the Pavilion.

‘Capture the Flag’ is one of the known ethical hacking competitions in the world. The competition will test the skills of ethical hackers to penetrate websites, apps and networks to test security levels and anticipate hacking attacks, hack hardware and reverse engineer, among others. The winners of the final round, to be announced on the last day of the event, will get prizes funded by Trend Micro.

“At a very early stage, the Abu Dhabi Government realized the value of cybersecurity and the importance of protecting our networks, devices, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access,” said Ali Rashid Al Ketbi, Chairman of the Department of Government Support. “We organised this global challenge as part of broader efforts to encourage more people to take up jobs in cyber-security, build the cybersecurity skillset to deal with future cyber threats, and strengthen the cybersecurity capabilities in the emirate.”