Photo
shows Filipino student Joshua Arvin Lat (center), first place winner in
the Kaspersky Lab 2012 Student Conference Global Cup, posing with
second placer Iwan Gulenko (left) from Germany and third placer Napa
Sae-Bae from New York. Not in photo are Lat’s team members Kevin Charles
Atienza and Rod Xavier Bondoc.
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.
Source: Philippine Star June 11, 2012
