Bizarre things are happening in MITA regarding the National Cyber Security Challenge. Apparently, the National Cyber Security Challenge didn’t take place in 2023 after having debuted in 2022. This year, the National Cyber Security challenge was won by Luke Bjorn Scerri along with his friends that featured in the FreeHour Malta story. Luke Bjorn Scerri, who works with a locally-based crypto-staking-services provider, had also won the 2022 edition.
After having won this year’s competition, Luke Bjorn Scerri, Giorgio Grigolo and Michael Debono were told that although they’ve won the competition, MITA were not nominating them for the European Security Challenge because they are currently under police investigation. They are indeed being investigated by the police over the FreeHour debacle when they found a security flaw in the popular student app.
There are various issues with MITA’s position in their position, but first and foremost one has to consider the fact that Keith Cutajar, who currently holds a near-monopoly, on services provided to the state in relation to cybersecurity is one of the organisers of the national competition. As a regularly appointed court expert, Keith Cutajar likes talking his book especially when it comes to “liability”.
Basically, MITA is adopting a very strong position against any potential infringement of the law, and this is quite in line with what a court expert would want for his business. In fact, Keith Cutajar is also the expert helping the police understand several technical details about their case.
Luke Bjorn Scerri, Giorgio Grigolo and Michael Debono haven’t been charged in court yet, so MITA has no official capacity in confirming whether they are being investigated or not, unless of course MITA’s service-provider informs them that the competition’s winner are being investigated because he is also involved in the case as a designated expert.
As a previous bureaucrat I would say that this is a case where MITA is supporting the priorities and interests of a section of professionals in the industry who particularly offer services to the government: a common and regular infraction by MITA in everything that it does. The point of the National Cyber Security Challenge is to promote the nation’s top talent in hacking skills, so of course, hackers will be competing in this event and some of them, if not many of them, would have had problems with the law. This doesn’t mean they are hardened criminals and should be treated as such: similar to journalists who face legal challenges in their line of work.
MITA, as always, maintains its reputation among bureaucrats, politicians, and executives who know it well for stifling innovation, looking at things the wrong way, and allowing professionals to lead it according to their self-interest.
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