The Internet Society (Aftab Siddiqui) and APNIC (Tashi Phuntsho) jointly conducted a Network Security Workshop in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG) on 3-5 October 2017. This was arranged for current and potential members of the first neutral Internet Exchange Point (IX) in the country called PNG-IX, at the request of NICTA – the National Information and Communications Technology Authority – a government agency responsible for the regulation and licensing of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Papua New Guinea. NICTA is also a key partner in establishing the Internet Exchange in PNG.
This first half of Day 1 (3 October) was dedicated to the PNG-IX awareness., such the role of an IX, how it works, why an IX has been established in PNG and why everyone should peer in order to achieve both short- and long-term benefits to the local Internet ecosystem. NICTA CEO Charles Punaha, NICTA Director Kila Gulo Vui, and APNIC Development Director Che-Hoo Cheng shared their views
There were more than 40 participants in the Network Security workshop, with diverse backgrounds ranging from enterprise environments, state universities, financial institutions, telcos and ISPS. The training alumni completed lab work and learned about important security topics such as cryptography, SSH, PGP, TLS/SSL, IDS/Snort and infrastructure security topics such as RPKI, ROA and BGPsec . The presentation material is available on the APNIC Wiki.
The workshop participants who had different levels of industry experience, unsurprisingly asked many curious questions and discussion extended beyond the agenda topics and into more general Internet security issues. The participants found the workshop not only informative but also inspirational with the knowledge that was presented.
This event was made possible with the support of NICTA, and the Internet Society is grateful for their help and assistance throughout the week.