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With the event in Dubai attended by the Head of Cyber Security, United Arab Emirates Government, UAE, H.E Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti; former Mossad chief, Major General (Res.) Danny Yatom; and former head of the Israel National Cyber Directorate, Yigal Unna, the CyTaka World Cyber Championship in Dubai offered a $1,000,000 prize to the hacker who could take control of a drone positioned in a secret location in Israel.
Doron Amir, CEO of CyTaka and founder of “The Best in Cyber” competition, created the World Cyber Championship. More than 1,000 hackers from around the world competed in the preliminary rounds. A total of 14 reached the final round in Dubai for a chance at the Million Dollar Prize – with the stipulation of only using tools available to civilians.
In the end, none of the hackers in the championship were able to crack the million-dollar challenge before the time extension ended. Only after the competition ended, one of the contestants, Sayfeddine Aydi from Tunisia, managed to gain control of the drone, fly it, operate the camera and send a photo of the code they were required to obtain. Three more cyber experts from India, the United Arab Emirates and Israel, who competed in the final round, managed to complete the mission only after the solution was publicized.
Civilian Cyber
However, the benefits of the competition spread beyond the stage at Dubai. Doron Amir, the competition’s founder, met with Sheikh Salman bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, CEO of the National Cyber Security Center in Bahrain. They talked about the developing cyber in Bahrain, and they agreed to meet again to discuss a program that will safeguard the tradition of the cyber championships and about the possibility of Bahrain hosting them as well, in order to encourage the next generation to advance their Cyber skills.
The challenge revealed that Civilian Cyber must also be regarded as a potential source of terrorism. One can use civilian tools to attack any country for intelligence purposes (gathering and photographing information), to cause damage and create chaos (for instance, seizing control over the traffic-light system and causing traffic accidents).
Therefore, developing sophisticated defense mechanisms in addition to military systems has great strategic importance. This was the first time that a real-life situation was played out and a cyberattack on Israel broadcast live from a foreign country.
For Doron Amir, “We encourage the promotion of civilian cyber so as to identify weaknesses and establish technological defense mechanisms. Civilian means have the potential to cause great harm to Israel, and civilian cyber should be taken just as seriously as military cyber.”
The Million Dollar Prize is still waiting to be claimed and will be offered at the next Cyber Championship. CyTaka published the solution to the drone challenge on their Website: https://www.cytaka.com
Meanwhile, CyTaka continues to promote local cyber championships in Israel, and will hold a contest with a prize of 100,000 NIS at the INNOTECH conference at Expo Tel Aviv, March 29-30.
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