Pinoy students tops in Kaspersky Lab’s student conference on cybercrime

Filipino students win top prizes in Kaspersky Lab’s student conference on cybercrime in Hong Kong 

Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content and threat management solutions, announced that students from the Philippines bested 12 other finalists from various countries in the recently concluded regional preliminary round of the Kaspersky Lab Asia Pacific and Middle East, Africa (MEA) Cup2012, an annual event that brings together students and young professionals from around the world in a collaborative environment to present and discuss issues relating to cybercrime.

The research papers presented by team leaders 21-year old Joshua Arvin Lat and 19-year old Ranyel Bryan Maliwanag won the first and second prizes, respectively, at the conference held on March 14 to 16 at the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), a leading university in Asia in professional education and research.

Both Filipino students are from the University of the Philippines Department of Computer Science (UP-DCS). They said they carried out their researches at the department’s Computer Security Group.

 

Veniamin Ginodman, Kaspersky Lab head of educational programs management (left) poses with top prize winners Joshua Arvin Lat (center) and team member Rod Xavier Bondoc during the awarding ceremonies in Hong Kong. Not in photo is third team member Kevin Charles Atienza.

The top research paper written by Lat and his partners Kevin Charles Atienza and Rod Xavier Bondoc entitled “SOUL Sytem: Secure Online USB Login System,” recommended a secure online authentication system involving a two-factor authentication scheme using a password and an ordinary USB flash drive as a security token. The group took home US$1,500 in cash prize for their winning paper.

Veniamin Ginodman, Kaspersky Lab head of educational programs management (left) with second prize winners Ranyel Bryan Maliwanag and team mates Mariah Strella Indrinal and Marynyriene Silvestre during the awarding ceremonies in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Maliwanag and his team, composed of Mariah Strella Indrinal and Marynyriene Silvestre, created an application that uses voice recognition. Their research entitled, “Vox-Grid: A Mobile Voice Verification System,” which proposed a mobile voice verification system to improve the security of the username-password authentication scheme, won for the group a US$1,000 cash prize.

Third place winner was the research paper entitled “Mining Modules’ Dependencies for Malware Detection” by Masoud Narouei from the Shiraz University of Iran which won for him a cash prize of US$750.

This is the first time the Philippines joined the annual conference, which has this year’s theme of “IT Security for the Next Generation.”  

Their wins in the Asia Pacific and MEA Cup 2012 have earned for Lat and Maliwanag their respective spots to represent the Philippines in the 2012 Kaspersky International Cup of the IT Security Conference for Young Professionals to be held at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands on May 11-13, 2012. Kaspersky Lab is sponsoring the all-expense paid trip of the team leaders to the global round.

This time, they will be competing against the winners of the three other regional preliminary rounds held in America, Europe and Russia & Commonwealth of Independent States. Lat and Maliwanag as well as the other participants stand a chance to win the cash prize of 3,500 euros plus the opportunity of an internship at Kaspersky Lab or a visit to a professional Information Security conference together with the company's experts.

In the Hong Kong round, the research papers were presented and defended by Lat and Maliwanag to a panel of judges composed of experts from Kaspersky Lab as well as notable academicians and information technology experts from the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong.

The undergraduate students from UP competed with tertiary and post-graduate students from the Asia Pacific, Middle East and African regions.

Selection was based on scientific and methodological level of work, the social importance of the topic presented, completeness, objectivity with collected information, as well as practical and innovation value in different areas ranging from technical, social, economic to legal topics.

“The quality of papers presented was of a very high standard with much thought and creativity having been put into the content,” said Veniamin Ginodman, Head of Educational Programs Management at Kaspersky Lab.

“Kaspersky Lab is committed to continue holding this student conference annually as a platform to engage in open discussion and knowledge-sharing to develop shared strategies and solutions to combat the relentless evolution of cyber threats. We hope that with more knowledge-building and sharing activities, the region will have an excellent youth brain trust when it comes to cyber security-related issues. Clearly, there is much potential here that has not been fully tapped yet,” he said.

A total of 52 papers were submitted to this year’s conference, five of which were from the Philippines. In Southeast Asia, only Malaysia and the Philippines made it to the Asia Pacific & MEA Cup 2012.

“This conference has again brought together the best from the Asia Pacific and MEA region with excellent support from internationally recognized academicians and analysts,” said Harry Cheung, Managing Director for Kaspersky Lab Asia Pacific.

“The cyber world is youth-driven and the contribution of the young participants in furthering knowledge on cybercrime will significantly add to the body of work now available,” he said. (HM)