Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov awarded the winners of the first practical online hackathon in Ukraine

Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov and Deputy Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Serhiy Demedyuk awarded the winners of Ukraine’s first online hackathon “Hoverla” for subjects of the Law of Ukraine “On Basic Principles of Cybersecurity of Ukraine” and critical infrastructure workers, held by the National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity under the NSDC of Ukraine and the CRDF Global Ukraine Foundation.

Opening the award ceremony, Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov noticed that such events are extremely urgent and meet the requirements of the time. “I want to emphasize once again that traditional wars are becoming a thing of the past, modern threats are of cybernetic and biological nature, and the issue of confrontation in space is urgent as well. Recent events with the pandemic have proven this”, - he said stressing the importance of strengthening public-private cooperation in countering cyber threats.

Deputy Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Serhiy Demedyuk noted that the online hackathon enabled specialists of government agencies and private companies to demonstrate their skills in practice and develop common approaches to cyber incidents response.

“I believe that in the future we will develop a single model of such exercises with further adaptation to various government agencies”, - he said adding that it is possible to build the capacity of the National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity only in systematic cooperation with the private sector particularly in exchanging information on cyber incidents.

Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov expressed his sincere gratitude to the participants for their efforts to improve the national cybersecurity system of Ukraine, test new methods of system protection, and ensure a joint response to incidents.

The winners of the online hackathon shared their positive impressions, distinguishing the element of competition and the value of practical experience.

The red teams were represented by ethical hackers from companies “10Guards”, “Cyber Unit”, “ITLab”, “Berezha Security”. Representatives of “10Guards” achieved the highest results among them.

As a reminder, on April 27-29 this year, three-day cyber training of critical infrastructure workers took place. The event was organized by the National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity at the NSDC of Ukraine and the CRDF Global Ukraine Foundation.