Nigeria to Represent Africa at Global Cyberlympics

Emma Okonji

Two Nigerian teams of cyber security professionals from a group called the “NaijaSecForce” have emerged the African Champions in Global Cyberlympics – the Olympics for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers around the world.

Two distinct Nigerian teams, NaijaSecForce and Ekopwn3rs came first and second respectively and they are to represent Nigeria and Africa at the global stage. Both teams also made it to the top 12 position in the world in the online qualifying round of the competition having solved all the challenges from the prequalifying round.
Global Cyberlympics is a hands-on cyber security team competition that brings together the best ethical hackers from around the world to compete in a series of challenges such as Forensics, Penetration testing, Cryptography, Malware analysis – Capture the Flag Challenges.

This year’s competition has been full of intrigues as the participants were given hardened systems to break into and other complex tasks to complete within a 12-hour period. They defeated teams from other nations and the African region such as Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Sudan, Ghana etc., to cling the top spot in Africa.

Judging was based on the speed at which systems were hacked, the number of vulnerabilities found, challenges solved or flags found and the techniques used to uncover and exploit them.

NaijaSecForce team is made up of Rotimi Akinyele (Team Captain), Oluwaeseun Oyelude (PwC Nigeria), Funmipe Olofinlade (eSentry Systems Ltd), Eyitemi Egbejule (Python Software Foundation Fellow), Shuaib Oladigbolu (Ladoke Akintola University of Technology) and Rajesh TV (ENCODE).

Ek0pwn3rs has in its team: Abimbola Jaiyeola (Team Captain), Chinedu Onwukike (IBM, Canada), Chidi Obum (Cyberinfocts), Olalekan Ismail (Ladoke Akintola University of Technology), Oladipupo Oyediji (PhynxLabs) and Adetutu Ogunsowo (Digital Jewels Ltd).

Both teams have been selected to represent the African Continent at the finals, holding on September 13, 2018 in Atlanta GA, USA. They will be competing with the winners from other continents and the top cybersecurity professionals across the globe.

Speaking on the development, a member of the team, Rotimi Akinyele, who currently works with a UAE Government Authority, said despite competing against the best-of-the-best in the whole world, the team was very confident of winning and returning as champions.