Careers to be made in cyber security
Australia’s first defence cyber security challenge gave its 300-plus challengers exposure to a growing industry facing a global skills shortage.
Tracy Tam was one of 340 contestants who had to crack at least one of the two challenges designed by cyber security specialists Dtex Systems and Threatmetrix.
A former Melbourne solutions architect, Tracy won the Saab Australia prize of a Macbook Pro which she said she’ll use to manage the administration and online marketing of her bakery business, The Project Counter, which specialises in science and technology-themed baked goods.
Saab Australia’s cyber security specialist, Marc Tapping attended the Ruxcon 2017 security conference in Melbourne last week where he met Tracy and had the pleasure of handing over her prize.
“I went into this challenge thinking I didn’t have much of a chance but I really enjoyed the process and surprised myself. Then I found out I’d won a first and second prize in the Royal Melbourne Show the same day I heard I won the cyber challenge — it was a great day,” said Tracy.
John Wilbraham, a naval weapons electrical engineering officer from Sydney won the account takeover challenge which secured him a Saab Australia sponsored conference ticket, airfares and accommodation to attend the Australian Cyber Security Centre Conference next year. He also receives a three day hardware hacking workshop with Nova Systems.
South Australian undergraduate (honours) computer systems student Clinton Page, won the internship undergraduate prize with Boeing Defence Australia. Clinton’s father Bruce Page, a civil security engineer with Saab Australia said “nobody was more surprised than me, to learn Clinton won. I was not involved at all – apart from telling him his uni studies should come first.”
Fellow South Australian and former software engineer, Bradley Lang won the insider threat challenge and receives a cyber-security fundamentals workshop and mentoring with Nova Systems.
The internet has transformed the way information is shared, stored, found and accessed, making it vulnerable to theft and misrepresentation.
“Too many Australian businesses don’t have the resources to manage cyber security threats and the risks are too great to ignore, they can be catastrophic” said Marc Tapping.
“With the global shortage of cybersecurity skills, it’s our hope the challenge encourages a good percentage of the 340 participants to consider a career in what is a rapidly growing industry.”