The competition held this Friday, March 16, gathered the best cyber security teams in the world. The STT Team represented Técnico in this competition to which the President of the Portuguese Republic didn’t want to miss.

The competition was already in the middle when professor Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa arrived. As usual, the president showed enthusiasm and curiosity, and asked a lot of questions that were being answered by professor Pedro Adão, coordinator of STT team. How many girls does STT team has, how many times they compete, the world rankings and the main adversaries of STT team were some of the questions asked. “Three hundred teams competing?” asked the President with genuine admiration. “So we are in 20th place right now, aren’t we? That’s great!”

“We address cyber security issues every day and these students are preparing themselves to be up to the challenges. They are competing with the best”, said professor Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. The visit lasted 20 minutes and, at the end, the president took the famous selfie with the team.

Professor Pedro Adão defined the competition as “something very interesting and a recognition of the work that has been done for about three years, which is valued not only by Técnico but also by civil entities”. According to professor Pedro Adão “this is a difficult competition and the Russian teams are very good. I would be very happy if we ranked in the top20, that would be extremely positive”.

A few hours later, the final results were announced and, for the first time, the STT team ranked in the top10, reaching the 9th place at iCTF2018.