The final round of the WhiteHat Grand Prix 06 is scheduled to take place in mid-February in Hanoi, according to the Authority of Information Security under the Ministry of Information and Communications.

The final round of the WhiteHat Grand Prix 06 is scheduled to take place
in mid-February in Hanoi (Photo: Ministry of Information and Communications) 

The contest, launched last December, has welcomed the participation of 739 teams from 84 countries and territories.

Ten teams with highest scores in the preliminary rounds have made it through to the final. They comprise of three teams from the US, two from both the Republic of Korea and host Vietnam, and one each from Russia, India and Germany.

The contest, with the theme “Vietnam Today”, aims to realise a target to turn Vietnam into a safe information sharing and cyber security hub in Southeast Asia.

The winners will walk away with a prize worth 230 million VND (10,000 USD), while the runner-up and third-placed teams will win 45 million VND and 23 million VND, respectively.

This year, contestants will be asked to discover vulnerabilities in popular software and information systems in Vietnam and will receive a bonus prize in connection with the number of security flaws they find.

The first WhiteHat Grand Prix was held in 2014. It became an annual international competition the following year, drawing the participation of leading cyber-security teams from all over the world. It attracted 453 teams from 62 nations and territories last year.