The Information Technology Authority (ITA) continues to support the Omani competencies specialised in cybersecurity and all those who have the skills in ethical hacking with the ability to identify and tackle security vulnerabilities
Eng Bader bin Ali al Salehi, director general of the Oman Computer Emergency Readiness Team (OCERT), elaborated on the ITA’s role in this area, saying, “We are keen in supporting the Omani capabilities in ethical hacking and they definitely contribute to achieving the e.oman strategy and supporting the community for better. ITA provides training programmes and specialised competitions to those talents to guide and monitor them to improve their exceptional skills and obtain job opportunities in government and private sectors or to be an SME in the field.”
The authority launched a number of initiatives and programmes to nurture and guide these talents to use their skills in various IT areas. In the field of information security, ITA launched in 2011 the OCERT ambassadors programme, which is a platform consisting of specialists, academics, experts, researchers and those interested in ICT field.
Eng Salehi added, “Up to date, we have 649 ambassadors, including 170 specialists, 304 academics, and 175 general ambassadors. We contact them on an ongoing basis in everything related to awareness and research on information security. They are also involved in conferences and training courses specialised in ICT in general and in the field of information security in particular. The members serve as ambassadors in sharing their knowledge to the community.”
ITA organises a number of specialised competitions with suitable environment for exchanging experiences among participants and from the jury and expert recommendations. Some of the competitions organised by ITA include, ‘Discover Me’ competition, an educational competition organised in 2015 with the participation of more than 600 specialists. It aimed to look for outstanding human skills in the field of discovering security vulnerabilities.
‘Oman Threat Hunters’ competition started in 2017 with the participation of more than 300 participants and the winner competed in the regional competition organised by the Arab Regional Cybersecurity Center, held in Egypt. The second edition of the competition was held in 2018 and this year’s competition will be held next month.