Oliwia Płoch, Michał Hanak, Saskia Laura Machovičová, Dan Vašíček – this is the Polish-Slovak-Czech team that won this year's CyberTron at Wrocław University of Science and Technology. The competition tests IT skills and the ability to creatively solve problems in the field of cybersecurity and critical infrastructure. Congratulations!

The aim of CyberTron is to raise awareness about online threats, provide skills to deal with them, and potentially neutralise them without causing harm to the user. This year's fourth edition of the competition took place from 16th to 18th September at the Student Culture Zone of our university. There were 32 participants from high schools in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany, all selected in the preliminaries. During the final, they were divided into 4-person international teams.

– From the perspective of what participants achieve as part of CyberTron, the most important aspect is the collaboration and new acquaintances. This is quite evident from the results, as some tasks posed problems at the beginning, and yet were successfully solved. It is also worth emphasising that the level is getting higher each year. We have increasingly well-educated high school students in various countries, which, from the perspective of maintaining cybersecurity, allows us to look to the future with hope – notes Dr. Mateusz Tykierko, deputy director of the Wrocław Centre for Networking and Supercomputing.

On the first day, the students participated in a field game consisting of four events: a quiz related to cybersecurity events, jumping over fibre optics, cabling a server cabinet, and assembling a single server. These tasks were best performed by the team consisting of Adam Węglewski (Poland, Technical School No. 10 in Wrocław), Kirill Galant (Germany), Matyáš Sýs (Czech Republic), Ondrej Husek (Czech Republic). Ondrej Husek made as many as 350 jumps through the fibre optic cable. Congratulations!

– I was surprised when the cable was pulled out and we started jumping over it like a skipping rope. But we did well. The other tasks were ok too. We worked great together, even though we are from different countries and didn't know each other before. We assembled the server in 15 minutes. We completed the task 100% – notes Adam Węglewski from Technical School No. 10 and a member of the team that won the field game during the CyberTron 2025 edition.

The next two days involved challenges related to an IT game consisting of CTF (Capture the Flag) tasks in areas such as networking, cryptography, and web security. The goal was for the teams to overcome digital obstacles and find a certain string of characters. The best team consisted of: Saskia Laura Machovičová (Slovakia), Dan Vašíček (Czech Republic), Oliwa Płoch (Poland, Technical School No. 10 and Michał Hanak (Poland, Secondary School No 5 in Wrocław), who was among the leaders of the competition in terms of the number of tasks completed.

– Success in CyberTron depends on the team you draw. Even if you are the best player in the competition, it won't help much if the others have a poor score. I had a good team and we managed to win,” says Michał Hanak, a student of Secondary School No 5 in Wrocław, who is part of the team that won this year's CyberTron IT game.

– I feel immense pride, just like all the teachers and students from our school. Michał is a wonderful student and mind. He has immense skills. Overall, we have excellent students who possess IT skills, and this is not the first competition we have won – emphasises Natalia Buczak, a teacher from Secondary School No 5 in Wrocław.

The competition is organised at Wrocław University of Science and Technology by the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology and the Wrocław Centre for Networking and Supercomputing, in cooperation with the Marshal's Office of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship.

Photos from the event are available here.

The project is co-financed by the budget of the Local Government of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship