HACKWEEKDAY OFFERS CASH PRIZES AND JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR TOP CODERS

First Weekday Hackathon in Malaysia

5 October 2011, Kuala Lumpur – HackWEEKDAY, a 24-hour code off that will run alongside the 9th annual Hack In The Box Security Conference 2011 Kuala Lumpur (HITBSecConf2011KUL) will be offering a cash prize of US$1337 and recruitment opportunities for winning developers. This is the first weekday hackthon in Malaysia.

Kicking off at 13:37 (GMT+8) on 12 October and ending a full 24-hours later on the 13 October, HackWeekday will see coders from all walks of life to come together and work on open source security tools including the Xandora.net Project, Dilligence, Maltego and Mozilla Firefox plugins.

Sponsored by Mozilla, creators of the Firefox web browser, HackWEEKDAY aims to revive abandoned open source security projects and have the work contributed back to the security community. “The nine Firefox Web add-ons, plugins and extensions that have been identified to be worked on as part of this activity stand to benefit Firefox users worldwide,” said Lucas Adamski, Director of Product Security, Mozilla. Firefox is the second most widely used browser with over 30% market share.

This flagship HackWEEKDAY, inspired from successful hackathon events usually held over weekends, also aims to spark interest in security application development – a field that could potentially offer lucrative returns. “The marketplace is already crowded with web application developers, however the 24-hour session aims to get more of them interested in security development and to adopt secure coding practices,” said Hafez Kamal, one of the main organizers of HackWEEKDAY.

“We hope this event will also draw the interest of the education sector – especially as the industry has repeatedly pointed out the dire need for students to be “market ready”. An event like HackWEEKDAY allows them to step up their skills, and step out of their classroom thinking, to think on their feet and be creative with real-world applications. Plus, the event will feature knowledge sharing directly from authoritative figures in the security community,” continued Kamal.

Developers with an itch to write a 31337 Firefox plugin, new Maltego transforms or hack with the experts and learn from the best are invited to participate. “Registration is completely FREE and we are anticipating 75 developers from all over the world to participate,” said Kamal
Up for grabs is a cash prize of US$1337 to the “most 31337 coder (31337=ELEET)” and a host of other goodies. The HackWEEKDAY winner also gets a waiver on the HITBSecConf2011 pass worth RM999. Developers will also get a chance to show off their code/project in the HITB SIGINT lightning talk sessions on the 13th afternoon. More information on HackWEEKDAY is available here: http://hitb.org/hackweekday

Other goodies at HITBSecConf2011KUL

The HITBSecConf2011KUL will feature 37 international speakers who will focus is on new and ground-breaking networking attack and defense methods that have not been seen or discussed in public before. The topics range from high level strategic nation-state cyberwar issues to deep technical dives on IPv6 technologies.

Across the 2-day conference, 4 tracks will run simultaneously – including 16 SIGNT sessions and 5 hands-on-training labs. Some of the hands-on training labs are already full, whilst others have limited seats still available.

“The HITB SIGINT (Signal Intelligence/Interrupt) sessions are designed to provide a quick 15 minute overview for material and research that’s up and coming – stuff that isn’t quite ready for the mainstream tracks of the conference but deserve a mention nonetheless. This session is for seasoned security professionals and is also open to all final year students based in Malaysia or around the Asia Pacific region who want to present their projects to industry experts and prove their worth before they graduate,” said Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, Founder and CEO of Hack In The Box.

“In addition to these, HITB2011KUL will also feature an all new Capture The Flag - Weapons of Mass Destruction game, an updated Lock Picking Village with a focus on impressioning, and a new Hackerspaces ‘Playground’ for those looking to get into hardware and electronics hacking. The playground will feature LEGO robotics, microcontrolers, LEDs, lasers, RFID toys, hardware sniffing and other cool technologies”, said Kannabhiran.

For more information on HITBSecConf2010 – Malaysia (10-13 October 2011) and to register for the event, please see: http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2011kul/