ETH Team wins 2025 Geneva Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge
On 10 and 11 April, the cyber competition Geneva Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge 2025 took place. Team PhishTank from ETH Zurich won first place, while Team Ephex from EPFL came in third. Congratulations!
In the Geneva Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge, student teams from around the world need to handle a a simulated cyber incident in a timely way. Through the combination of interactive learning with competitive scenario simulation, the students are being challenged to react to a dynamic, lifelike international cyber crisis scenario. They are being tasked with assessing the threat it presents to national, international, and private sector interests, and to offer strategic recommendations to manage the situation in an effective matter.
For this year's edition, three teams from ETH Zurich, and one Team from EPFL participated: Phish Tank, Cyberia, VeniVidiSecuriti and Ephex.
The ETH Cyber Group organized a 7-week long training, to prepare the teams for the competition. The weekly 4-hour training sessions involved experts in the field of cyber security and security policies. These expert-led sessions should not only broaden the competitors knowledge on various relevant topics for the competitions, but also improve vital soft skills and teach them how to structure a compelling argument. The ETH Cyber Group also organized two trial-runs, in which the participating teams competed against one-another following the same format of the competition, to get more hands-on practice.
"We are proud of the results and commitment of the participating teams", says Nicola Stocco, member of the ETH Cyber Group and main organizer of the training sessions. The Group wants to continue bringing high quality training to ETH students and to allow them to compete in such international competitions at a high level. "We want to highlight the excellence of our association and ETH as an institution", he adds. An ETH Zurich team already won the competition in 2024.
For the partipants of the competition itself, the Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge offered a real eye-opening event, which offered plenty of hands-on experience, as Xiangyang Qian, from the winning team PhishTank, mentions: "I came away with a deeper appreciation for the interdisciplinary nature of cyber security, joyful memories and friendships, and a growing interest in a future career in this field."
We congratulate the two winning teams from ETH Zurich and EPFL on this great achievement!
More about the ETH Cyber Group: As an ETH student association, Cyber Group aims to bring the topic of cyber security closer to students from all study programmes, and create a network between students, academia, industry and the public sector. Its primary goal is to support student groups participating in cyber crisis simulation competitions, by providing them with appropriate training, funding and overall support during the competition.
Additionally, Cyber Group organises a variety of “Open Port” events throughout the year, during which renowned cyber security experts come to ETH to share the current state of their field with students. Cyber Group also organises an annual “Meet & Greet”, a networking event for cyber enthusiasts from all study programmes and areas to socialise and enjoy an evening of talks.
About the Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge
The Geneva Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge is an annual competition that falls at the intersection of geopolitics and cybersecurity. Students from all over the world gather to compete and create policy recommendations for a fictional cyber disaster. The challenge serves as a combination of a competitive scenario exercise and an interactive learning experience, requiring teams to respond to a realistic, evolving cyberattack and evaluate the risk it poses to national, international, and private sector concerns.