Pinoy students top international contest of Kaspersky Lab

MANILA, Philippines - A team of Filipino students were recently named overall winner in the global cup of Kaspersky Lab’s annual international conference dubbed “IT Security for the Next Generation.”

The event, held at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands last May 11-13, brought together the brightest researchers from four preliminary regional rounds, namely North America, Europe, Russia and the Commonwealth Independent States and from the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, to compete for the top awards. 

Twenty-two-year-old Joshua Arvin Lat from the University of the Philippines, won first prize as the team leader of the research paper “SOUL System: Secure Online USB Login System.”

The paper was co-authored with his classmates Kevin Charles Atienza and Rod Xavier Bondoc. All three were Computer Science students when they submitted the paper to Kaspersky Lab. They won 1,500 euros for their winning paper.

As part of his prize, Lat is invited to be a part of the program committee for the competition next year.

Second place went to Iwan Gulenko from the University of Munich in Germany, who presented a research paper entitled “Concept and Development of a Facebook Application to Raise Security and Risk Awareness Regarding Social Engineering.” His paper won for him 1,000 euros.

Meanwhile, Napa Sae-Bae of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (New York Poly) from New York took third place with her research on “Biometric-Rich Gestures: A Novel Approach to Authentication on Multi-touch Devices” for which she received 750 euros as cash prize.

The jury also decided to present a special prize to Ang Cui from the Columbia University in New York for his work “Killing the Myth of Cisco IOS Diversity: Recent Advances in Reliable Shell code Design” (in co-authorship with Jatin Kataria and Salvatore Stolfo).

“We are very happy that our undergraduate research paper got first place. We did not expect it would stand a chance against those of post-graduate students’ papers from all over the world,” Lat said.

Bondoc said, “We were already very happy to have reached the International Cup and represented the country but winning it proved that we can compete with other countries when it comes to cyber technology.”

Atienza, who was in Warsaw, Poland when he learned the news, said he was impressed with Josh’s presentation skills that made them win the competition.

“This student conference provides a motivation and incentive for students to improve the qualities of their research. I’m grateful for Kaspersky Lab for providing students like us this opportunity,” he said.

“The quality of the student papers is absolutely outstanding and I am amazed to see the level of research presented across all the papers selected for the conference. I believe such initiatives by Kaspersky Lab play a major role in bringing academics, security experts at Kaspersky Lab and, most importantly, the best student brains closer to each other and promoting the culture of education and research around the world,” said jury member Dr. Priyadarsi Nanda, professor at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia.

This is the third year of the student conference with the inclusion of Asia-Pacific countries. It is the first time the Philippines was short-listed for this competition.

The Philippines was represented by two teams in the regional cup held at the City University of Hong Kong last March 14-16 for which they won the top two prizes.

Lat and his team clinched the first prize while Ranyel Maliwanag and his team members Mariah Strella Indrinal and Marynyriene Silvestre, who are also Computer Science students from UP Diliman, won second prize. 

The annual conference has been held since 2008. The most promising student papers submitted to the organizers are selected, and those nominees are invited to participate in the conference.

There, they have an opportunity to present their research work, compete with their fellow participants from other universities, attend master classes and presentations from industry experts, and join these experts in discussions on contemporary IT security problems.

Regional rounds of the conference are held in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, and Russia and the CIS, with the strongest candidates progressing to the final phase.

“The international ‘IT Security for the Next Generation’ conference is a platform for discussion and the exchange of knowledge and experience, bringing together current and future IT security professionals. The conference aims to support and encourage talented young specialists in the battle against Internet threats, while helping them form an idea of the IT security profession and current industry trends while they are still at university,” said Veniamin Ginodman, director of educational programs at Kaspersky Lab.