UNbreakable Romania, the largest cybersecurity education program for high school pupils and university students, has concluded its eighth edition with a record participation: almost 1,700 young people from all over the country have registered to take part in training sessions, local and national competitions.
According to a press release, starting with this edition, UNbreakable Romania aims to set up clubs dedicated to cybersecurity enthusiasts that will develop active local communities, encourage practical education and create connections with industry professionals to help young people integrate into the job market.
In addition to the already known stages of preparation and individual and team competition, the 2025 edition of UNbreakable Romania brought a number of new initiatives to the program. The program kicked off with an online bootcamp held from 20 February to 27 March, with almost 1,700 registered participants and 15 thematic webinars. In the same period, the first local training competitions were also held, organized in physical format in six cities in the country: Bucharest, Iasi, Suceava, Sibiu, Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca. In total, 376 pupils and students from 70 high schools and 14 universities participated in these events. Of these, more than half were at their first experience in a Capture the Flag (CTF) competition, additional proof of the real interest of young people in cyber security.
"The results of UNbreakable Romania this year clearly show that cybersecurity education and practice are increasingly sought after among the new generations. We have expanded the program in major cities through local events with significant impact, and the next step is the creation of cyber clubs to support the development of local communities and young talents at national level. We want to bring cybersecurity closer to everyone, including in small towns, to identify the future specialists we need and to open up all the opportunities for their development in a field that is inevitably becoming increasingly important," said Andrei Avadanei, CEO of Bit Sentinel.
UNbreakable Romania was held again this year on the CyberEDU technical educational platform developed by Bit Sentinel and supported by Orange, the organizers of the program, and which offers participants access to essential resources for training future professionals in the field of cybersecurity. In addition to the bootcamp, CyberEDU hosted the two online competitive phases: the individual and team competition. The individual competition registered 486 participants: 191 from university, 236 from high school and 59 competed "for fun". Participants represented 167 high schools and 27 universities from 40 counties. In the second stage, the online team competition, 211 teams took part, up 80% from last year. Of these, 134 teams scored points in the competition.
The best 16 teams - eight from high school and eight from university - from the online team competition qalified for the UNbreakable Romania 2025 finals, held from May 9 to 11 in Bucharest. The 44 finalists from all over Romania competed intensively on the CyberEDU platform, demonstrating solid technical knowledge, cooperation and resilience in the face of challenges. The prizes, worth over EUR 5.000, were offered by Bit Sentinel and Orange Romania. Among the winners were the teams from Constanta, Mangalia, Oradea and Bucharest, in the high school category, and from Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest, in the university category.
UNbreakable Romania is a national program organized for high school and university students who are preparing for a career in cybersecurity or who want to improve their knowledge in the field. The pilot edition took place in 2020 and since then, UNbreakable has taken the form of an annual program, attended by more than 6,500 young people in total, from dozens of universities and hundreds of high schools in Romania.
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