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Dubai Police Launch Dh223,000 Cybersecurity Contest
The “Capture the Flag” challenge and new cyber platform are part of a wider push on digital safety within the Emirate.
Dubai Police have unveiled a new Dh223,000 hacking contest, putting students and professionals through their paces during Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
The “Capture the Flag” challenge is split into three tracks: school students competing for Dh40,000, university entrants for Dh78,000, and professionals for Dh95,000. Online qualifiers run from October 5 until the end of the month, with finalists meeting at the Dubai Police Officers’ Club on October 25-26. Officers said the aim is to surface talent in penetration testing that could bolster future security efforts.
The competition comes as demand for skilled cybersecurity specialists continues to climb across the region. Governments and private firms alike are turning to ethical hackers to stress-test networks, with the UAE positioning itself as a training ground for digital defense.
The contest is only one element of a broader campaign. Police are staging dialogue sessions, workshops for schools and universities, and a forum for businesses to sharpen awareness. The Protection Centre “Hemyah,” better known for programs on drugs or bullying, has shifted focus this month to online threats.
A new digital portal, ecrimehub, went live alongside the campaign. It offers guides on common scams, a library of 60 awareness videos, and an AI assistant that police say can answer questions with near-perfect accuracy. Users can upload screenshots for instant fraud checks. Weekly quizzes will add a public engagement element, with prizes for winners at month’s end.
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“On the ecrimehub website, technology meets public safety in an innovative way,” explained Major Engineer Khalil Al Hosani, Acting Deputy Director of the Cybercrime and Artificial Intelligence Crimes Department.
Police stressed that fraud reports submitted through the portal are investigated immediately, with suspicious accounts or numbers shut down when possible. The push underscores the UAE’s effort to harden its digital landscape and promote safer use of technology, in line with national strategies to build a secure and resilient society.
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Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
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The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
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