Supporting IT Professionals

The growing need for IT security professionals is widely acknowledged worldwide. To help mitigate this shortage of skills, many countries launched national cybersecurity competitions targeting towards students, university graduates or even non-ICT professionals with a clear aim to find new and young cyber talents and encourage young people to pursue a career in cybersecurity. The European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) leverages on these competitions by adding a pan-European layer.

The European Cybersecurity Challenge is an initiative by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and aims at enhancing cybersecurity talent across Europe and connecting high potentials with industry leading organizations.

How to participate - National Competitions

European countries host their national cybersecurity competitions. The winners of the national contests represent their countries in the ECSC.

Similar to the ECSC, the national cybersecurity competitions consist of security-related challenges from domains such as web security, mobile security, crypto puzzles, reverse engineering, and forensics, which the participants have to solve in order to collect points. The inpiduals with the most points win the competition and secure a place in their national team, which will go on to compete in the ECSC finals.

To participate in the European Cybersecurity Challenge, please check the list of Participants to see which countries are taking part in the event.

OUR GOALS

Cybersecurity

The goal of the ECSC is to place cybersecurity at the service of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of democratic values, freedom of thought, dignity and critical thinking

Transparency

The ECSC provides the necessary institutional means to promote transparency and fairness of the competition between participants and to resolve any dispute that may arise between players

Collaboration

The ECSC promotes friendly relations between attending countries, officials and players. Every person and organisation involved in ECSC is obliged to observe the Statutes, regulations and the principles of fair play

Policy

The ECSC is promoted by the European Commission and in a broader sense falls within the overall context of the EU's Cybersecurity Strategy, and the NIS Directive which together with the European Agenda on Security provide the overall strategic framework for the EU initiatives on cybersecurity and cybercrime

Diversity in Cyber

With its mission to address the shortage of cybersecurity talent in Europe, the ECSC is also concerned with gender diversity. As a well-established platform, the ECSC is an opportunity to attract more women to the cyber profession. Read more about the ECSC and how it serves as an enabler for achieving a more balanced cybersecurity workforce in the whitepaper on Women in Cybersecurity produced by Deloitte

Degree in Cybersecurity

The ECSC promotes the development of the cybersecurity experts of the future. Young talents are encouraged to use the ENISA's Cybersecurity Higher Education Data Base to make informed decisions on the variety of possibilities offered by the EU higher education in cybersecurity