Recap 2023: Part 1 — GCC 2023, Conferences and MCC 2023
Tahun 2023 telahpun menutup tirai dan tahun 2024 telahpun bermula. Hello, everyone! We have reached to a new year. I believe everyone brings along their new hopes, prayers and goals for this year that we wish to come true. So do I! May all our wishes and dreams come true.
2023 has been quite a strangely overwhelming yet excitingly awesome year for me personally. Quite numerous events that had happen still linger in my mind which the word ‘thank you’ can never be enough for me to say to every person I have met throughout the year. I may not be able to mention everyone here, but I am truly blessed to get to meet, know and connected to all of them.
Hence, I have decided to write this recap blog not to only share my activities throughout the year, but also as a token of appreciation and remembrance of the people who contributed to my growth, especially in this fast-paced cybersecurity field last year. Moh kite!
Table of Content
∘ GCC 2023 — Singapore
∘ CYDES 2023 and CyberDSA 2023
∘ Cybertron 2023
∘ MCC 2023
GCC 2023 — Singapore
After attending Malaysia Cybersecurity Camp — The first edition on December 2022, I was again given the chance and opportunity to participate in the Global Cybersecurity Camp 2023 that was held in Singapore last year! It was surreal. Up to this day, it still felt like a dream for me to represent the country to participate in a global level intensive camp and to be out of the country for the first time!
The representative from every participating countries; Singapore, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan and Australia including students, volunteers and staff members were so nice, chill and the fact that all of us was able to vibe with one another really made my heart warmed. Being the only Muslim hijabi woman, I was worried that it might be difficult for them to reciprocate with my boundaries. But, they were all cool with it! They were understanding and tolerant with my boundaries. It was heartwarming still.
The intensive classes throughout the 5 days was really thrilling as I was able to have a deeper insights of each topics taught to us every single day as we were taught by the experts representing the involved nations as well! I was able to solve one question for the reverse engineering class and it was bizarre! I had never thought I was able to understand how RE actually works (I am still floating in the air for RE but hey…I managed to face my fear haha). I was also able to meet with the famous Shota Shinogi the first time there too! Ever since, I started to look up on him especially in his expertise on the field. A very generous person and the wide knowledge he has left me a deep impression. I wish to be someone as well-versed as him one day. Wish me luck!
Read more at: https://gcc.ac/gcc_2023/
CYDES 2023 and CyberDSA 2023
I attended the event firstly was with the intention to support my friends who were participating in the CTF that was held on the first day of the event alongside observing and trying to get to know anything related to cybersecurity from the industry itself — from trying to connect with people, familiarizing the companies, products and services and of course helping out taking care of the booth to exposing MCC to people! It was fun, for real. Meeting people of the industry, have a chit chat with them, listening to their thoughts and wisdoms really makes me wonder how fun it is to love your work!
Besides listening to the side sessions during the event, I still remember that I was given the chance to be one of the speaker for a session during CYDES 2023 together with the other MCC crews and alumni. The session namely “Youth in Cyber” gave us the opportunity as the young padawan (hopefully) of the scene on our thoughts how we put up and start our journey into the world of cybersecurity. Shout out to the father of MCC (you know who hahahaha) and NACSA for giving me and MCC alumni the opportunity to speak our thoughts out!
Read more at: https://cybercamp.my/news-and-achievements/
Cybertron 2023
Attended the first ever real life hacking conference to represent both my university as a student and as a crew for MCC was…well… I have no words to describe except for being extremely happy and excited as I was able to live witnessed a real-life hacking demo. There were more than 6 stations (if I remember correctly) demonstrating hacking demos such as phishing and social engineering really made me feel amazed. I was also able to listen to talks from representative of companies that explains and elaborate on how for such the implementation of protection from transaction fraud in banks and how the process works. It was exciting however I felt too bad as per session for each talk was limited. Looking forward to attend the conference again!
MCC 2023
This one…First off, I am truly honored to come back as the crew of this camp. Never thought I was given the opportunity again to attend and participate. I had been doing writings and managing the blog and press release for MCC, helping the bosses whenever and involved in the process of interviewing sessions…I was truly honored and happy for the chances given to me by Mr Yap and other crews with me. Other crews involved were also my mates of MCC 2022, so the bonding remains and how we can still hang around with each other was truly…I am not sure what would be the right word to be used but yeah… Lowkey felt old after meeting the new guys of MCC 2023, also proud of them to witness their capabilities in solving the challenges created by Teng as well as how membara semangat mereka through the 4 days camp. It was also great to meet sifus of the industry and to learn from them too directly for DFIR and Burp Suite. It gave me a different perspective to keep maintaining my spirit to strive in the scene and diving deep.
That is all for this round. Until the next part for another update!
