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In recent years there has been a rise in data breaches affecting organizations across various industries and continents and Kenya is no exception. Data breaches have far-reaching consequences, undermining trust and privacy and exposing sensitive information to malicious actors.

Cyber Challenge - More than a CTF:

In 2022 we launched BSidesNairobi and had our first series of events. We began by holding a Cyber Challenge/CTF competition held on 25th of June at the Microsoft Africa Development Center in Westlands,Nairobi. This was a physical team based event that brought together various enthusiasts and professionals to tackle the challenges created by community contributors.

Challenge Categories:

1. Active Directory
2. Digital Forensics
3. Governance Risk and Compliance
4. Web App Exploitation
5. Incident Response
6. Physical Security

Some worth mentioning open source tools used included:

1. Wazuh.
2. Arkime.
3. Velociraptor.

Cyber Challenge - More than a CTF Stats

1. CTF Challenge Creators: 9.
2. Attendees: 150
3. Participants: 125
4. Teams: 25.

The Cyber Challenge venue was sponsored by Microsoft ADC and Cyber Challenge platform was sponsored by CYBER RANGES. INE, OffSec and Microsoft ADC sponsored the prizes.
Based on the feedback received, this was amongst the first CTF competitions that had physical security challenges and incorporated realism with a good spread of challenges from topics to complexity.

Conference - Redefining IT Security

The main conference was a 2 day conference held on 16th-17th September 2022 at the United States international University Africa (USIU-A). We had a total of 30 speakers,170 attendees, 7 volunteers and 16 sessions

The first day consisted of talks focused on career development and opportunities, and had a total of 5 talks.BSides Nairobi is the first community conference that had representatives from the government and law enforcement as guests. The second day consisted of technical talks and consisted of 11 talks.

The conference schedule can be accessed here

Organizational Representations

1. Microsoft Africa Development Center
2. Computer & Cybercrimes Coordination Committee
3. Communication Authority
4. Kenya Defense Forces
5. Kenya Cybersecurity and Forensics Association
6. e.KRAAL
7. CYBER RANGES
8. Trend Micro
9. Cyber Talents
10. SheHacks Kenya
11. Cyber Shujaa
12. Startinev
13. Women in security Kenya

Sponsors and Funding

The Cyber Challenge - More than a CTF was sponsored by the Microsoft Africa Development Center. The sponsorship included the venue and food for Participants. We are grateful to the ADC leadership and team for supporting and hosting, and Joylynn Kirui,senior cloud security advocate for championing our course.

The main conference site was sponsored by United States international University Africa (USIU-A) . We would like to thank Prof.Patrick Wamuyu, Dr. Paula Musuva, Ms. Tabitha Musya, Mr. Zahir Khan and the universities media team who made this possible by championing our course. Thank you Startinev and Cyber Shujaa for your technical input and expertise during the event

To cater for the logistics, we sold tickets and also got donations from the cybersecurity community. A total of 24 individuals donated a total of Kes. 332,505. We raised Kes. 82,806 from the ticket sales. The funds were used to facilitate the event, each attendee received a T-shirt, Lanyard, and Name Tag as part of the swag, and lunch was catered for during the event.
In addition, because of the funds raised, we were able to sponsor a total of 56 student attendees by reaching out to cybersecurity communities in Kenya and undergraduate schools. 6 of the students received additional sponsorship in the forms of accommodation and transport. These were students from underrepresented regions.

Thank you to all the well wishers for the donations and support that enabled us not only have a cater for the conference logistics but all have a very inclusive event.
Thank you Tracy Maleeff for being an ally and helping amplify our donation call.

Volunteers

1. Ziana Otoyi
2. Jones Baraza
3. Jacklyne Mbuthia
4. Fraizer Kilonzo
5. Meshack Mwala
6. Caleb Jephunneh