The Initial Planning Conference (IPC) Meeting in preparation for the European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) 2024 to be held in Turin, Italy, Oct. 7-11, was held last March 14 and 15 in Rome at the headquarters of the CINI Cybersecurity National Lab at the DIAG Department of the Sapienza University of Rome. The European Cybersecurity Challenge 2024 will be jointly organized by the Italian National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) and the CINI Cybersecurity National Lab, suppored by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).

The meeting, which saw the participation of representatives of more than 25 member countries of the ECSC Steering Committee, was an opportunity for meeting and discussion to plan the next edition of the European competition and the guidelines for the following years.

After the welcome greetings from Franca Marroncelli, Industrial, technological, research and training programmes service of ACN, and Paolo Prinetto, Director of the Cybersecurity National Lab of the CINI, there followed a series of interventions by the Italian organizers and European representatives moderated by Adrian Belmonte, Cybersecurity Expert of the Capacity Building Unit of ENISA.

The meeting began with a presentation of Gaspare Ferraro, co-chair of ECSC2024, relating to the organization of this edition of the competition and to present openECSC2024, a series of online Capture-The-Flag (CTF) competition open to all, valid for the preparation and selection of the teams participating in the ECSC, in the first round of which more than 1300 players from over 80 countries around the world participated.

Following the speeches of Gabriella Caramagno, chair of the logistics unit, with information relating to the organization and spaces of the OGR - Officine Grandi Riparazioni, which will host the event, of Matteo Rossi and Giulia Martino, co-chairs of the scientific unit, with information regarding the methods of competitions and their preparation, and from Gianluca Altomani, chair of the technical unit of competitions with information on infrastructure and the competition platforms.

The meeting was also a moment of discussion of European and International topics, with the speech of Ioannis Agrafiotis (ENISA) relating to Team Europe, the European cybersecurity team, which will participate in the third edition of the International Cybersecurity Challenge to be held in Santiago de Chile next October and the speech of Gema Fernandez (ENISA) on the European Cybersecurity Index to provide insights into the maturity and capabilities of individual countries and the European Union according to Article 18 of the NIS2.

The next appointment is set for June in Turin for the final meeting before the European Cybersecurity Challenge in October.

All the photos of the meeting are available in the gallery.