Trend Micro Nurtures Global Cybersecurity Talent With 2018 Capture The Flag Event

Trend Micro Incorporated announced its fourth annual Capture The Flag (CTF) competition, which invites teams from around the world to demonstrate their skills and challenge their knowledge in today’s most critical areas of cybersecurity protection. The Trend Micro CTF 2018 – Raimund Genes Cup is one of several ways the company works to motivate and train talent to support the critical industry need.

“At Trend Micro, we have always been passionate about fighting the bad guys to make the world safer for exchanging digital information, and skilled professionals are imperative to make that a reality,” said Eva Chen, chief executive officer for Trend Micro. “We recognized there was a growing need for more strong professionals, so four years ago we began our global CTF to encourage and develop these critical skills in young professionals. By honing these capabilities in more professionals we are doing our part to minimize the skills shortage.”

The annual global CTF helps participants develop and hone their skills in today’s most critical areas of need, including cybercrimes, targeted attacks, Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS).

Trend Micro hosts nearly 20 CTFs each year around the world, including the main global event, as well as hosting 10 contests in collaboration with the Organization of American States, which are specific to women across Latin America.

Beyond this event, Trend Micro operates a number of additional initiatives that support skills development. The company recruits and trains new cybersecurity professionals in five global centers, located in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Czech Republic and Egypt. These centers recruit individuals from both technical and non-technical backgrounds with no specific cybersecurity experience required. After completing a comprehensive cybersecurity training program, the individuals receive job offers from strategic partners and customers, as well as Trend Micro, to fill the need for more trained practitioners across the industry. In total, Trend Micro will support the development of more than 2,500 new cybersecurity professionals by 2022, to counteract the 1.8 million skills shortage projected by Frost & Sullivan.

“The demand for qualified professionals is the most consistent security concern we hear across our industry and our connections across the region,” said Mark Liggett, Senior Security Analyst from Tulane University. “Trend Micro is one of very few global companies that is actively working to help change this. Equipping new professionals from all walks of life is key to helping more businesses effectively manage their security stack and mitigate the risk of attack. The importance of a unified platform to both assess security risks and remediate them cannot be overstated. Trend Micro excels with the depth and breadth of their offerings and connection to the security community.”

This year’s CTF consists of two rounds, an online qualifier and the finals. Taking place on September 15-16, the online qualifier will include Jeopardy style questions that challenge teams to solve various security problems quickly. The top 10 teams will qualify for the finals, which will take place in Tokyo, Japan on December 15-16. The finals presents both King of the Hill and Jeopardy-style questions to further test the teams’ skills.

The winning team from the finals receives JPY1,000,000, which is about US $9,000, along with 15,000 Zero Day Initiative Rewards Program points per player. The second and third place teams receive JPY300,000 and JPY200,000, which is nearly US $3,000 and $2,000 respectively.