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Cybersecurity
Sweden sweeps the winning title of the European Cybersecurity Challenge
Best competing teams in this 12th edition of the European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) include Sweden, winners, followed by Finland in second place and Austria in third place. ENISA congratulates the winning teams and thanks all participants and organisers for their dedication to make it a successful event.
For this 2026 edition, Germany was granted the honour to host the challenge this year. National cybersecurity teams made up of 10 best talents aged between 14 and 25 met in the city of Bochum to network and cooperate and to cyber-compete. The 35 teams represented EU Member States, European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries and EU candidate countries. Another 7 guest international teams joined the event.
The EU Agency for Cybersecurity Executive Director, Juhan Lepassaar stated that “It is quite remarkable to see how the EU cybersecurity challenge has gathered momentum over the years and how the event continues to drive the motivation of so many young Europeans. I am therefore quite confident about the inevitable return on investment this means for the building of the future cybersecurity workforce of the EU.”
The 2026 event was organised by NFITS with the support of the EU Agency for cybersecurity (ENISA) and of the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC), the city of Bochum and main sponsor Schwarz Digits.
For the opening ceremony, speakers invited included Christian Van Heurck, Deputy Head of Capacity Building Unit, ENISA, Thorsten Holz, Professor at RUB and scientific director at MPI-SP; Valina Panteli for the Jury, Pedro Adão and Ioannis Agrafiotis for Team Europe.
The closing ceremony featured the chief hacker from the Germany's foreign secret service BND as well as Jörg Lukat, Mayor of Bochum, Fabian Fäßler who has the YouTube channel LiveOverflow, Jan-Luca Gruber from Schwarz Digits, Erik Anders from Securepoint, Dr. Evangelos Ouzounis, Head of Capacity Building Unit, ENISA; Sokratis Katsikas, professor at NTNU, Alexandra Asgari from the ECCC, and Mark Lane representing the Women International Cybersecurity Challenge (WICC).
ENISA wishes to thank all speakers and guests but especially the teams for their engagement and dedicated participation to the event.
The ECSC featured jeopardy CTF. These are challenges in web security, cryptography, reverse engineering, and software and hardware vulnerabilities. Each solved challenge yields a “flag” and scores points. Attack-defense was also featured. In this challenge, teams run their own services and keep them online while attacking the other teams’ services.
A new format of challenge was featured this year. Referred to as CTF Unplugged and networking, teams had to race to solve challenges offline and against the clock, with a separate ranking.
Again, the ECSC gives participants the opportunity to experience collaborative work in a dynamic competitive setting, where efficient communication and team-based decision-making play a critical role in achieving success.
The technical challenges were designed by the organising team entirely working on a voluntary basis.
A Female+ Bootcamp will take place on 17-18 October 2026 for women participants from the national teams. The side event is intended to promote diversity and make cybersecurity appeal to an extended number of women.
The bootcamp is a chance for women participants to access further levels of technical training, mentoring sessions, and give them networking opportunities. All such activities were devised with the same objective in mind, which is to strengthen skills and build confidence.
For the first time, an international cybersecurity challenge for women took place in Dublin earlier this summer. Team Europe won this challenge. The event was intended to foster the next generation of women leadership in cybersecurity and therefore showcasing how women can be empowered to embrace cybersecurity roles.
ENISA is a dedicated advocate of initiatives addressing gender inequality in cybersecurity. ENISA directly supported the participation of the female Team Europe in the Women’s International Cybersecurity Challenge 2026 (WICC2026), in close partnership with the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC) and the European Commission.
The next European Cybersecurity Challenge will be hosted by Denmark next year.
The next International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC 2027) will return the competition to Europe for the first time since it was first held in Athens, Greece in 2022. The ICC will take place in October 2027 in Ireland.
The European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) is an initiative supported by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and aims to enhance cybersecurity talent across Europe and connect high potentials with industry leading organisations.
As a global Capture the Flag event (CTF), the International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC) is designed to encourage the development of cybersecurity skills and to foster international cooperation. The format of
For this 2026 edition, Germany was granted the honour to host the challenge this year. National cybersecurity teams made up of 10 best talents aged between 14 and 25 met in the city of Bochum to network and cooperate and to cyber-compete. The 35 teams represented EU Member States, European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries and EU candidate countries. Another 7 guest international teams joined the event.
The EU Agency for Cybersecurity Executive Director, Juhan Lepassaar stated that “It is quite remarkable to see how the EU cybersecurity challenge has gathered momentum over the years and how the event continues to drive the motivation of so many young Europeans. I am therefore quite confident about the inevitable return on investment this means for the building of the future cybersecurity workforce of the EU.”
The 2026 event was organised by NFITS with the support of the EU Agency for cybersecurity (ENISA) and of the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC), the city of Bochum and main sponsor Schwarz Digits.
For the opening ceremony, speakers invited included Christian Van Heurck, Deputy Head of Capacity Building Unit, ENISA, Thorsten Holz, Professor at RUB and scientific director at MPI-SP; Valina Panteli for the Jury, Pedro Adão and Ioannis Agrafiotis for Team Europe.
The closing ceremony featured the chief hacker from the Germany's foreign secret service BND as well as Jörg Lukat, Mayor of Bochum, Fabian Fäßler who has the YouTube channel LiveOverflow, Jan-Luca Gruber from Schwarz Digits, Erik Anders from Securepoint, Dr. Evangelos Ouzounis, Head of Capacity Building Unit, ENISA; Sokratis Katsikas, professor at NTNU, Alexandra Asgari from the ECCC, and Mark Lane representing the Women International Cybersecurity Challenge (WICC).
ENISA wishes to thank all speakers and guests but especially the teams for their engagement and dedicated participation to the event.
The ECSC featured jeopardy CTF. These are challenges in web security, cryptography, reverse engineering, and software and hardware vulnerabilities. Each solved challenge yields a “flag” and scores points. Attack-defense was also featured. In this challenge, teams run their own services and keep them online while attacking the other teams’ services.
A new format of challenge was featured this year. Referred to as CTF Unplugged and networking, teams had to race to solve challenges offline and against the clock, with a separate ranking.
Again, the ECSC gives participants the opportunity to experience collaborative work in a dynamic competitive setting, where efficient communication and team-based decision-making play a critical role in achieving success.
The technical challenges were designed by the organising team entirely working on a voluntary basis.
A Female+ Bootcamp will take place on 17-18 October 2026 for women participants from the national teams. The side event is intended to promote diversity and make cybersecurity appeal to an extended number of women.
The bootcamp is a chance for women participants to access further levels of technical training, mentoring sessions, and give them networking opportunities. All such activities were devised with the same objective in mind, which is to strengthen skills and build confidence.
For the first time, an international cybersecurity challenge for women took place in Dublin earlier this summer. Team Europe won this challenge. The event was intended to foster the next generation of women leadership in cybersecurity and therefore showcasing how women can be empowered to embrace cybersecurity roles.
ENISA is a dedicated advocate of initiatives addressing gender inequality in cybersecurity. ENISA directly supported the participation of the female Team Europe in the Women’s International Cybersecurity Challenge 2026 (WICC2026), in close partnership with the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC) and the European Commission.
The next European Cybersecurity Challenge will be hosted by Denmark next year.
The next International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC 2027) will return the competition to Europe for the first time since it was first held in Athens, Greece in 2022. The ICC will take place in October 2027 in Ireland.
The European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) is an initiative supported by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and aims to enhance cybersecurity talent across Europe and connect high potentials with industry leading organisations.
As a global Capture the Flag event (CTF), the International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC) is designed to encourage the development of cybersecurity skills and to foster international cooperation. The format of