Germany topping ranking of 5th edition of European Cyber Security Challenge; Romania, 4th

Germany, Italy and Poland are currently the best three teams of the 5th edition of the European Cyber Security Challenge 2019 competition, which is taking place these days at Parliament Palace in Bucharest.

Romania's team is close to the podium, in 4th position, only 20 points away.

According to the real-time results posted on the official website of the competition (https://europeancybersecuritychallenge.eu/leaderboard), about four hours into the competition, Germany totalled 3,712 points, followed by Italy - 2,790 points, and Poland - 2,732 points. Only 20 points away, Romania, with 2,712 points, tied with the United Kingdom.

Bringing up the rear are the Netherlands (1,160 points), Luxembourg (680 points) and Liechtenstein (552 points).

Competitors from 20 countries participate in the 2019 edition of the European Cyber Security Challenge (ECSC) competition, at Parliament Palace in Bucharest, October 9-11. Romania has lined up a team of 10 young people.

On the list of the competing countries 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. At the same time, two countries are present as observers of the competition, namely Finland and Malta.

The national team of Romania is made up of Robert Vulpe (captain), Robert Dobre, Dragos Albastroiu, Ioan Dragomir, Mihai Dancaescu, Cristian Done, Matei Badanoiu, Alexandru Top, Tudor Moga and Mihai Cioata.

The European Cyber Security Challange (ECSC) is an initiative of the European Union Agency for Network Internet Security (ENISA), this year in its sixth edition. The competition started in 2015, according to the Plan for the Implementation of the European Union Action Cyber Security Strategy.

Romania was twice European cyber security vice-champion, in 2016 and 2017. In the first edition of the competition, organised in 2015 in Switzerland, the Romanian team ended fifth.

The event in Bucharest is organised 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 AGERPRES National News Agency and Digi24 private broadcaster are media partners.

According to ENISA, next year's European cyber security competition will be held in Vienna. ECSC will travel to Prague, in 2021; Norway in 2022, and Italy in 2023