DEFCON in Las Vegas is a yearly gathering of hackers of all types, out to prove who is the best when it comes to defeating security systems and the like. This year, a Filipino team composed of Paul and Mon, two specialists from Chikka’s IT and Network Security Departments, participated and won in the Network Forensics Contest and Capture-the-packet challenges, where they analyzed a live network traffic environment and answered questions under a time limit.
Hacking isn’t as dastardly as it sounds in mainstream media. Much like most things in this world, there are two sides to hacking – you have your black hat hackers who generally wreak havoc on systems on a whole and then you have your white hat hackers, who hack for the greater good. White hat hackers used by tech specialists to identify problematic areas in the system in order to solve them. In fact, the networks supporting IT services and apps that the public enjoy are maintained by IT experts and hackers like them.
As for the duo, their personal message is this: “Hacking is not always a bad thing,” shares Mon. “We hope to organize more of these conferences and hackathons in the Philippines so we can help encourage the Filipino youth to develop and use their skills for the better,” he adds.