Romania makes it to European Cyber Security Challenge 2019 podium after day one

Team Romania finished the first day of the ongoing European Cyber Security Challenge 2019 competition in Bucharest on the podium, as it ended the day on the second place, with a total of 4,200 points, according to the real-time results posted on the official website of the competition. 

Italy ranked first with 4,340 points, while France ranked third with 3,440 points. 

With 4,200 points, Romania is currently 140 points behind the Italian team, and 760 points ahead of team France. 

Topping the ranking on the first day of the competition, for quite some time, was team Germany, which, however, dropped to the 5th place, behind Austria, with a total of 3,340 points. 

Scoring over 3,000 points were also the teams from the UK (6th place) and Poland (7th place), followed by Spain, Greece, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Portugal - while scoring over 2,000 points were the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland, Cyprus and Switzerland (over 1,000 points). 

Bringing up the rear were Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, with 968 and 760 points, respectively. 

The competition, this year in its 5th edition, will resume on Thursday, at 10:00hrs, EEST, and will run until 18:00hrs, EEST. 

The winners of the European Cyber Security Challenge 2019 will be announced on Friday, October 11, at a ceremony to be hosted by the National Military Club Palace. 

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.