ECSC 2019/Minister of Communications and Information Society: Romania makes continuous efforts to be on European cybernetics map

Romania continues to make efforts to be on the map of European cybernetics, and the European Cyber Security Challenge 2019 taking place in Bucharest these days proves that it has very well trained young people who are passionate about cyber security, Minister of Communications and Information Society Alexandru Petrescu told AGERPRES on Wednesday.

The minister was present at the official opening of the competition at the Palace of Parliament, alongside representatives of the organizers, specifically the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CERT-RO) and the National Association for Information Systems Security (ANSSI).

"We have 20 countries participating in the European Cyber Security Championship in Bucharest, plus another two countries in the position of observers. More than 350 visitors from these countries are in Bucharest for the contest. This sixth edition of the event is very important for Romania, after we were very close to winning it in 2016 and 2017, when we placed second in the end. (...) We are talking about a competition dedicated to young people aged 16 to 25, organized at EU level; Romania continues to make efforts to be on the map of European cybernetics. Let us not forget that at the level of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which was held by Romania in the first six months of this year, we had some important cyber security projects; we've made progress with them, and even completed some," Petrescu said.

He mentioned that Romania is the only EU country and the world's second, after Israel, to have launched a short number where individuals or legal entities can non-stop report cyber security incidents.

A number of 20 countries are participating October 9 through 11 at the Palace of Parliament in the 2019 edition of the European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC); Romania is present with a team of 10.

In the three days of competition, the finalist teams will have to transpose into a scenario that presupposes developing and defending an infrastructure. The most important part is developing and defending their own infrastructure, but attacking the other teams also brings points. The competition tests have three levels of difficulty: hard, medium and easy.

According to the organizers, the tests will be in areas such as web security, crypto puzzles, reverse engineering and forensics, programming, attack and defense, Linux / Windows / macOS security and mobile phone security.

The countries to take the start in the Bucharest competition are: Austria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Finland and Malta act as observers.

The European Cyber Security Challange is an initiative of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) aimed at enhancing cyber security talent across Europe and connecting high potentials with industry leading organizations. Now at its sixth edition, the event started in 2015 in accordance with the Action Plan for the Implementation of the EU Cyber Security Strategy.

Romania has twice obtained (in 2016 and 2017) the title of European cyber security vice-champion. At the first edition of the competition, organized in 2015 in Switzerland, the Romanian team placed fifth.

The event in Bucharest is organized by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), CERT-RO and ANSSI, in partnership with Orange, Bit Sentinel, certSIGN, Cisco, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, eMag, Clico and Cybertas; the National News Agency AGERPRES and Digi24 are media partners of the event.