PRESS RELEASE 4th November 2022
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) Cyber Smart Week concludes its program this week with the Smack Hackathon – ‘Smackathon’. An initiative that encourages the software community and businesses to make sure latest standards on website development are included when developing online services. It is also an opportunity for the Ministry to develop a secure website for the SamCERT, leading the industry in making sure compliances are there for security. At the end of the cyber event a website will be available to ensure awareness materials are disseminated to all relevant stakeholders and to collect incidents from around Samoa.
Five (5) teams were registered for the Smackathon and only three (3) put through submissions by the deadline. The Panelists were from Global Forum on Cybersecurity Expertise (GFCE) and CertNZ, who were very impressed with the outcome of the professional work from the teams. All teams were all born and raised in Samoa and the winner is a team called ‘Taro Shield’. The other teams were called UP-2-You-Bro and Seki Hacks. They were very inspirational in their presentations.
Samoa has certainly moved a step forward in terms of cyber awareness this week.