Twelve-year-old Moroccan wunderkind Rayan Ait Taher on Tuesday won the President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition, an event organized every five years by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
The Moroccan cybersecurity talent took first place in the competition with a score of 3245 points, surpassing several competitors– including Israel’s Yonatan Yoni.
The remote competition included tests and vulnerability diagnostics in computer systems prepared by CISA.
Morocco World News (MWN) has reached out to the young talent for a statement, but he is yet to comment on his outstanding achievement.
The 12-year-old Moroccan prodigy notably received a congratulatory letter from CISA in which the organization’s official expressed their “admiration” for the young prodigy, according to Moroccan state media SNRTNews.
The President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition aims to identify and recognize the best cybersecurity talent in the world. Competitors typically face different challenges that require extensive cybersecurity skills.
In a previous statement to SNRT, Ait Taher expressed satisfaction with taking on global competitions as a “personal challenge.”
He spoke of having won several international prizes with his outstanding professional hacking skills, notably recalling how he “managed to change the place of the logo on Neymar’s website.”
“They didn’t believe it at first, so they asked me for a report of what I did and that allowed me to win the first prize of $72,000. However, I didn’t receive it because I’m a minor,” the 12-year-old prodigy told SNRT.
