HKNLU 2020

University of the Philippines, Los Baños Laguna - Hackers gathered for the awaited hacking conference of the year in the Philippines, Hackin’ ka na lang 2020. Students, information technology enthusiasts, information security practitioners and experts from prominent business organizations came together at UPLB’s DL Umali Hall last February 22, 2020.

HKNL’s community continues to grow with the new partners this year. PAYMAYA, GLOBE MyBusiness, and ProximaX Philippines joined Sitesphil in this year's making of HKNL. UPLB’s student organization, YSES, and older partners CompTIA, and ISACA Manila Chapter also took part in the said event and brought souvenirs in their booths for the attendees.

Speakers engaged in topics on cybersecurity, blockchain, information security careers, and hacking. Mr. Elvin Mercader, director for the Academe of ISACA Manila Chapter, started the conference with interactive talk on cybersecurity fundamentals. He and the participants engaged in a digital activity of survey and games to start the conference fun. Mr. BJ Edward Tuduran, the head of engineering security of Voyager Innovations Inc. that brought us PAYMAYA, inspired the audience of his story on how he courageously started an InfoSec journey on his talk entitled “Cybersecurity Forecast: People, Process and Technology”. The noon session began with Mr. Ronneil Petterson, a business technology strategist of ProximaX Philippines, with his serious talk on “Making a Secured Web 3.0 with Blockchain”, which left us curious about how blockchain is underrated in the Philippines. Mr. Orly Seachon Jr., the country manager of CompTIA Philippines, joined us once again to talk about careers in the information security industry which gained a lot of inquiries from the student audience at the end of his talk called “Preparing the Tomorrow: Global Cybersecurity and Workforce Challenges.” One very essential knowledge to hacking, Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), was elaborately broken down by Mr. Christopher ER Laylo, a Senior Network Security Engineer at Sitesphil, where he explained how it happens and how to prevent this. The keynote speaker, Mr. Benjie Brian Zamora, the Head of Consulting and founder of Sitesphil, wowed us again with his talk on “Web Application Security Testing Using OpenSource Tools”, a very interactive learning experience where he showed the audience different tools and techniques into hacking web applications as we’ve never seen before in other conferences.

To materialize Sitesphil’s vision and mission of an infosec-aware Philippines, HKNL will continue to travel across the country and spread information security awareness and teach ethical hacking like no other. Follow Sitesphil on social media to know the next location of the cybersecurity event of the year: Hackin’ Ka na Lang 2021! See you there!