Who will join the next
Italian Cyberdefender team?

Who will join the next
Italian Cyberdefender team?

Team Composition Rules

TeamItaly 2024

Every year, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) organizes theEuropean Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) to favor the exchange of knowledge and talents from all Europe. The competion is open to all European countries, and each participating nation organizes a team composed by 10 players, evenly ditributed between juniors (between 14 and 20 years old) and seniors (between 21 and 25 years old).
The 2024 edition of the European Cybersecurity Challenge will be held from the 7th ot the 11th October 2024 in Italy, in Turin.
TeamItaly is the Italian Cyberdefender national team, which represents Italy in this and other international competitions. The best talents between the age of 14 and 25 can compete to get a spot in this team through a selection process structured in three main phases:
  • Phase 1: individuation of 50 national talents.
  • Phase 2: selection of 20 team members selected from the 50 chosen talents.
  • Phase 3: selection of the 10 team members for ECSC 2024.
What follows is the details of the three phases.

Phase 1: March 2024 - June 2024

The first selection phase will lead to the selection of at most 50 candidates for the making of TeamItaly 2024.
The following prerequisites must be met in order to participate in this phase:
  • Junior category: born between January 1st, 2004 and December 31st, 2009
  • Senior category: born between January 1st, 1999 and December 31st, 2003
Talents will be selected based on the following criteria:
  • the best 5 talents from OpenECSC 2024
  • the best 3 talents from OliCyber.IT 2024
  • the best 3 talents from CyberChallenge.IT 2024
  • the best 36 talents from the TeamItaly 2024 official selection event.
  • the best 3 talents who played other CTF competitions not considered in the previous criteria or who have demonstrated great value in the past either in TeamItaly or, more in general, in the Italian CTF community.
What follows is more information regarding the aformentioned competitions, providing more details about the specific selection criteria.

openECSC 2024

OpenECSC is an event organized by the Italian National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) and the CINI Cybersecurity National Lab, open to everyone and that takes place in 4 independent rounds throughout all 2024.
The selection process for TeamItaly will consider the first three rounds:
  • 1st round: March 18th 2024, 10:00 UTC - March 24th 2024, 22:00 UTC
  • 2nd round: April 22nd 2024, 10:00 UTC - April 28th 2024, 22:00 UTC
  • 3rd round: May 13th 2024, 10:00 UTC - May 19th 2024, 22:00 UTC
Talents will be selected trying to balance the demonstrated skills in the various challenge categories and considering the two age categories defined by ECSC 2024.
In order to join the selection via openECSC, it is necessary, other than indicating the nationality and date of birth during the registration, to also explicity enroll in the process using this link.

OliCyber.IT 2024

The Italian Olympiads in Cybersecurity (OliCyber.IT), organized by the CINI Cybersecurity National Lab del CINI, are a competition program aimed at connecting secondary school students with the issues of cybersecurity.
The selection for TeamItaly will consider the results of the national competition, trying to balance the demonstrated skills in the various challenge categories.

CyberChallenge.IT 2024

CyberChallenge.IT is the first cybersecurity training program for university and secondary school students, organized by the CINI Cybersecurity National Lab.
The selection for TeamItaly will consider the results of the local competition held on May 29th 2024, trying to balance the demonstrated skills in the various challenge categories and considering the two age categories defined by ECSC 2024.

Official selection event for TeamItaly 2024

On saturday, June 15th 2024, the official selection for TeamItaly 2024 will take place. It is a Jeopardy CTF lasting 24 hours, that will cover all the categories between cryptography, binary exploitation, reverse engineering, web security, forensics e miscellaneous. The participation is open to everyone, but only those in the correct age range will be able to compete for a place in TeamItaly 2024.
At the end of the competition, a general leaderboard will be generated, as well as specific leaderboards for each category or groups of cateogories, i.e. leaderboards generated considering only the challenges related to one ore more specific categories. In particular, the next phase will be accessible to at most 6 people for each of the following leaderboards:
  • general leaderboard
  • cryptography
  • binary exploitation
  • reverse engineering
  • web security
  • forensics and miscellaneous
The top 6 people from each leaderboard will be selected in order to guarantee at least 3 junior players.
In case one player will be present in more than one leaderboard (ex. general leaderboard and "cryptography" leaderboard), the trainer will be able to choose whether to move up the rankings or not.

Phase 2: June - August 2024

Starting from the second half of June 2024, and up to the middle of August 2024, the participants selected during phase 1 will be involved in an online training and selection phase. In this phase, meetings will be held involving advanced security concepts, in order to expand the knowledge gained by the CyberChallenge.IT and OliCyber.IT programs. During this phase, participants will also play online CTF events, with the aim of better evaluating each's skillset and improving teamwork.
Commitment, participation to the meeting, and the result achieved in the online CTFs, will be used as metric to select the 20 team members (10 juniors and 20 seniors) that will access the last phase.

Phase 3: September 2024

Between September 8th and September 15th 2024, admitted players will be meeting each other for a week-long retreat at Scuola IMT Alti Studi in Lucca, at the end of which the final 10 players (5 juniors and 5 seniors) that will represent Italy at the European Cyber Security Challenge 2024 in October will be selected and announced.