At the 2018 European Cyber Security Challenge finals won by Germany, Demonstenes Ikonomou, ENISA talked to Enterprise Times about cyber security competitions and what ENISA was doing. ENISA is the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security Agency. Ikonomou is responsible for the Unit on Operational Security. This unit focuses on the Cyber Europe exercise and the European Cyber Security Challenge (ECSC)

Demosthenes Ikonomou, Head of Secure Services & Project Support Activities, European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA)

Ikonomou sees the ECSC as being very successful. He says that it mirrors part of what ENISA does in Europe. One of the big successs for Ikonomou is the growth of the ECSC over the last five years. He said: “Five years ago there was a cyber challenge talking place between three countries; Germany, Austria and Switzerland. At a certain moment in time the European Commission came and invited ENISA to see if it could build a European Cyber Security Challenge.”

Since then, the competition has grown from three teams to 17. One of the challenges that Ikonomou now faces is how to handle that growth. He said that ENISA is already looking at whether the maintain the same model or create a different competition.

Ikonomou wants the competition to be as realistic as possible. One of the things that this means is that ethical challenges, as well as the more traditional technical challenges are important. This year, the candidates had to defuse a bomb which meant working out a physical rather than a coding challenge.

The ECSC is also seen by Ikonomou as a key place for employers to engage and find some of the brightest security talent in Europe.

To hear what else Ikonomou had to say listen to the podcast

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