Mark Lane
Founder of ZeroDays, CTF
It has been an incredibly busy start to 2026 for the ZeroDays team, with the first quarter of the year pushing the scale and ambition of Irish cybersecurity events to new heights. From the inaugural launch in Enniskillen to the record-breaking gathering at Croke Park, the common thread hasn’t just been technical skill, it’s been the palpable sense of community and the sheer energy of hundreds of people solving puzzles together.
Expanding the Footprint: Enniskillen and Blanchardstown
The year kicked off in February with a new addition to the calendar: Cyber-Challenge North West. Held at the impressive new South West College campus in Enniskillen, this event was a collaboration with CyberFirst NI, and supported by the NI Cyber Security Centre. As a beginners’ CTF, it saw 60 secondary school students dive into their first-ever Capture-the-Flag experience. The atmosphere was fantastic, proving that there is a massive appetite for these skills across the island. Plans are already in motion to evolve this into a full cross-border event next year, encompassing both school and college categories.
On Friday, 13th March, unlucky for some, but certainly not for the participants, the Cyber-Schools CTF took over the Áras Geal building at TU Dublin Blanchardstown. What started in 2022 as a small category within the main ZeroDays event has, since last year, grown into a massive standalone competition, run in collaboration with TU Dublin/GroSafe and UCD/CyberWise.
This year, roughly 250 students in over 60 teams represented schools, Coder Dojos, and code clubs from all corners of the country. The standard of play has skyrocketed over the last four years. We are now seeing a clear pathway from these school events to the international stage; last year, three Cyber-Schools players earned their place on the ten-person Irish team for the European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) in Warsaw. That team went on to secure Ireland’s highest-ever finish, breaking into the top ten out of 39 participating countries, in what is possibly the toughest CTF competition in the world. It is incredibly rewarding to see that journey, from a school computer club to representing your country on the continent, becoming a reality for these students.
The Big One: Croke Park
The flagship ZeroDays CTF took place last Saturday, and it has officially become a bit of a monster. Now in its 11th year, it has grown from an 80-person intervarsity competition in 2015 to the biggest in-person, one-day CTF in the world.
This year required two full floors of Croke Park, the Hogan Suite and the Hogan Mezzanine, to house nearly 600 competitors across 150 teams. The room was a mix of every university in Ireland, graduates, industry veterans, and 16 elite international squads who travelled from as far as India, Slovakia, Italy, Scotland, England and Denmark to compete.
While the competition is fierce, the heart of ZeroDays remains the same: it’s about inclusivity, learning, networking and having fun. It’s one of the few places where a first-year student might find themselves sitting at a table next to a world-class professional, sharing experiences over the same set of challenges. That sense of “we’re all in this together” is what keeps the community growing.
Why It Matters: More Than Just a Game
For the organisations and partners that support these events, they can see that the benefit goes far beyond a logo on a banner. These competitions are essentially a high-octane laboratory for talent. They highlight cybersecurity not as a dry, solitary task, but as an exciting, creative, and highly social career choice.
By partnering with ZeroDays, organisations are helping to build the foundations of Ireland’s future in digital sovereignty and innovation. They are supporting a network where students don’t just learn to code or patch vulnerabilities, but learn how to think laterally and work under pressure.
In the current geopolitical climate, international collaboration is more important than ever. Seeing Irish students rub shoulders with teams from across Europe and the globe builds the kind of professional networks that will be vital for years to come.
We would like to extend a massive thank you to our sponsors and partners. These events are physically huge and logistically complex, but they are essential. They provide the pathways and the community that make the Irish cyber scene what it is today: world-class, welcoming, and, above all, fun.
AIB, Cytidel, State Street, TU Dublin/GroSafe, UCD/CyberWise, Bank of America, ReliaQuest, Camara Education, Tog Hackerspace, WhatsExposed, Huntress, Tata Consultancy Services, Slándáil Research Ltd., Workday, Webamon, StarStrike, Atlantic Exploit Labs, Zero Latency VR, Cyber Ireland, BugCrowd, TryHackMe
We would also like to acknowledge the incredibly talented, international team that helps create and run a world-class event on this scale. The skills and dedication required are immense and they never fail to deliver: Cillian Collins, Daniel Cahill, Emmet Leahy, Samuel Bhuiyan, Ronan Donohue, Slava Opashnyuk, Mirko Nikic, Dean Brennan, Jacob Steadman, Graham Gibney, alongside the team that pulled it all together on the day: Luke Guinan, Ciara Ryan, Jonah Burgess, Francis, Ethan, Reece and Lucas Long, Niall Kahlout, Adarsh Dinesh, Andrew Currie, Peter Hyland, Finnian Oakes, Kacper Palka, Anya Nastina and Mark Leahy. Thank you all for helping make this CTF the most important, and the most fun, cybersecurity event in the country.
