The Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress on the Hunt for the Best Ethical Hacker

Who would be able to neutralise a virus as harmful as the Mummy Spider Trojan in less than two hours? This is the challenge that 45 hackers will face on 11 May in a competition organised by the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress (BCC), an international event focusing on cybersecurity organised by the Agència de Ciberseguretat de Catalunya.

The competition is part of the Hacking Village space, which on 10 and 11 May will raise awareness among companies of the dangers of cyber-attacks and the importance of cybersecurity in an interconnected environment.

The Mummy Spider virus is a banking Trojan that appeared in 2014, infecting devices and then using them simultaneously and in a coordinated way – structure known as a botnet - to attack banks. It took an international effort to take it down, and now new versions have reappeared. The goal of the participants will be to find vulnerabilities in the malware and stop its proliferation. The competition is supported by the American cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike.

Women in cybersecurity, focus of the conferences

In addition to the contest, the Hacking Village will feature talks to promote the role of women in the field of cybersecurity. The BCC is collaborating with the Brussels-based European foundation Women4Cyber, which carries out initiatives to break down gender barriers in this discipline. The panel of speakers on the first day will include specialists such as Saskia Brugman and Eduvigis Ortiz from Women4Cyber, and experts Hannah Tufts and Dasha Díaz, conference curators.

Among the list of speakers completing the conference programme are Carlos Fragoso, Principal Subject Matter Expert & Lead Instructor at Maltego; Mathieu Gaucheler, expert in attacks from information obtained on the network through publicly available open sources (OSINT) from the firm Maltego; Matías Bevilacqua from the US company Mandiant; Gonzalo Abad Reyes, from PWC and Omar Morando, CTO of Sababa Security.

Talent and investors

The BCC also features a talent market that includes a start-up competition, which will bring together entrepreneurs in the field of cybersecurity with investors; and an investment day, organised by the European Cybersecurity Organisation (ECSO) in collaboration with the Agència de Ciberseguretat de Catalunya (Catalan Cybersecurity Agency). The two best participating companies will be nominated for ECSO's European Cybersecurity STARtup Award 2022.

The exhibition area will host over 30 companies showcasing the latest cybersecurity solutions and, at the same time, organising workshops and activities to raise awareness of new products and services