Kaspersky and FCIS ASU announce the winners of Kaspersky’s Secur’IT Cup in Egypt

This year’s local Kaspersky Secur’IT Cup was held in collaboration with Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences Ain Shams University. The highly anticipated competition invited some of the brightest and most ambitious Egyptian students to contribute their ideas and skills towards building a cyber immune world.

The winner, Haythem Elnashar, was awarded first place with a project on using machine learning techniques in cryptography and earned a grant of $1,500 to implement an exceptional Proof of Concept (PoC) development for the next phase of his project. In addition, Haythem also received also received an invitation to travel to participate in the final round of Kaspersky’s Secur’IT Cup which will be held in Lisbon on December, 4th and 5th, 2019.

The international competition drew a massive influx of thought-provoking submissions. All submissions were then meticulously reviewed by an expert jury. The jury narrowed down the submissions and participants with the most impressive ideas were invited to demonstrate their projects in front of a panel of judges. Haythem Elnashar won by a mile, stunning judges with their creativity and exceptional problem solving ability to develop a project that was able to mitigate the threats potentially solved by Machine learning in cybersecurity. Kareem Selim and Hassan Mostafa Roshdy bagged second place with a project in the financial security category and received a grant of $500. In addition to this, the top three winners were also awarded free access to Kaspersky Academy cyber security certification program. This will further strengthen their credentials and help them to become security specialists in the near future.

In a statement congratulating the winners, Prof. Nagwa Badr, dean of faculty of Computer and Information Sciences Ain Shams university said, “We would like to extend our hearty congratulations to the winners of the Secur’IT Cup. Events like this can help students take the necessary steps towards becoming highly skilled security experts and leaders in the cybersecurity field. Cybersecurity is a major cause for concern and needs to be given significant attention. We are glad to have collaborated with Kaspersky on this initiative as it gives students the opportunity to put into practice what they’ve learnt in their classrooms.”

Khaled Mohamed, country manager at Kaspersky said, “We congratulate the winner of the Secur’IT Cup and look forward to seeing what they have in store for the finale in Lisbon. Kaspersky started the Secur’IT Cup with the intention of giving young people the opportunity and platform to help redefine the cybersecurity field. The winners of the Secur’IT Cup in Egypt have outdone themselves and have proved that with an initiative such as this, students have the opportunity to stretch their creativity to solve complex cybersecurity issues.” Held on the 29th of October at the Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences Ain Shams University, the competition played host to Egyptian university students between the ages of 18 to 26. Participants showcased their creative solutions to help solve cyber threats in the following categories: Financial Security, Machine Learning in Cyber Security and Automotive Security.