CyberChallengeIT 2025: we’re Italy’s runner-up! 🥈

Our Cybersecurity Laboratory, part of the Department of Computer Science (DIB) at the University of Bari Aldo Moro, achieved a historic milestone by securing second place overall among 40 Italian universities at the CyberChallengeIT 2025 national finals, held in Turin at the International Training Centre of the ILO.

CyberChallengeIT 2025

Our team

👨‍💻 Our team was composed of:

  • Salvatore Abello
  • Nicola Balzano
  • Davide Carella
  • Davide Nicolazzo
  • Pietro Loparco
  • Gabriele Schiraldi

supported by three of our tutors Vincenzo Cantatore, Vincenzo Turturro, and Marco Ferrara.

Special achievements

👏 A special shout-out goes to Salvatore Abello, who earned three distinctions:

  • 🏅 Best overall score in the local qualifying competitions
  • 🥇 First place in the Web category
  • 🥇 First place in the Binary category

This outstanding result rewards our commitment, passion, and countless days (and nights) of training that allowed us to bring the University of Bari to the national podium of this competition for the very first time.

Looking ahead

We’re also extremely proud that the next milestone for our lab will be the TeamItaly 2025 BootCamp, with three of our members – Salvatore Abello, Pietro Loparco, and Francesco Damiano Di Gregorio – selected to represent Italian cybersecurity talent.

A heartfelt thank you to all members of the lab, to our faculty and PhD students, and especially to Prof. Annalisa Appice and Prof. Donato Malerba for their constant guidance and support.

And a special thought goes to our mascot VLC, always by our side as a symbol of our spirit.

This is just the beginning: more challenges await, and we’ll keep working together to reach new heights.

#CyberChallengeIT #MntcrlLab #HackInFest #UniBa #DIB #Cybersecurity #TeamItaly #EthicalHacking #PugliaDigitale #CyberTalent #VLC