Registration for the International CyberEx’25 is now open
Up to 100 teams will participate in the 9th edition of this competition organized by INCIBE and the OAS.
The Spanish National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE), an entity under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, through the State Secretariat for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure, and the Organization of American States (OAS), have opened registration for the ninth edition of the International CyberEx.
The International CyberEx is an international competition whose main objectives are to strengthen the capabilities to respond to cyber incidents and to enhance cooperation among the participating countries.
This competition is aimed at professionals from Cybersecurity Incident Response Teams (CSIRT and CERT), as well as technical cybersecurity experts from the public or private sector, military, academic institutions, and civil society, with advanced knowledge and experience in ICT.
Participants will form up to 100 teams, with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 4 members. The team captain will be responsible for registering the team through the form available at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CYBEREX2025, which will be open from July 15 at 16:00 UTC until August 18. As a new feature in this edition, the number of possible participating teams has been increased by 25 percent compared to previous editions.
The exercise will take place on September 10, 2025, from 14:00 UTC to 22:00 UTC, with an estimated duration of 8 hours. After the exercise concludes, a videoconference session will be held with all participants to announce the results of the cyber drill, where only the ranking of the top 10 teams will be revealed. INCIBE will provide the execution platform, infrastructure for the challenges, the game system, and the scoring mechanism.
The cyber drill will follow a CTF (Capture The Flag) team format. This type of cybersecurity competition is designed as a training exercise, allowing participants to gain experience in responding to a cyber incident. It helps develop reaction capabilities against real-world cyberattacks such as intrusions, software vulnerability exploitation, website attacks, reverse engineering, or digital forensics, among others.
High level of participation in the last edition
In the most recent edition held in July 2023, 29 countries competed with the goal of strengthening cyber incident response capabilities and improving international detection and cooperation. A total of 80 teams participated, with Spain being the country with the highest number of competitors (13 teams), followed by Argentina with 7 teams and Colombia with 6. In total, the competition brought together 320 professionals and cybersecurity experts with advanced knowledge and experience in ICT, coming mainly from the private sector, government, defense, and academia.
10 years since the signing of the collaboration agreement between the MAEUEC and the OAS
The International CyberEx initiative is part of a collaboration agreement signed in 2015 between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain and the OAS, aimed at developing various cooperative actions to strengthen international protection levels in a comprehensive, coordinated, and effective manner.
