Locked Shields 2026: Romania defends critical infrastructure alongside Ukraine and Moldova

Locked Shields 2026: România a apărat infrastructura critică alături de Ucraina și Moldova

On Friday 24 April 2026, Locked Shields, the world’s largest live-fire cyber defence event, ended in Tallinn. Organised annually since 2010 by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), this year the event brought together more than 4,000 specialists from 41 states, organised in 16 multinational teams that defended, under real pressure, hypothetical critical infrastructures – from military systems to electronic voting networks, from air defence to essential utilities.

Romania was present in a multinational team alongside Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, a contribution coordinated by the National Directorate for Cyber Security (DNSC) on three directions: technical, legal and communication. The training and familiarization phase took place between 13 and 21 April, and the actual exercise days were 22 and 23 April. The training in Romania took place at the Central Library of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.

What is Locked Shields and why does it matter?

Unlike usual cyber security simulations, Locked Shields is a live-fire exercise: Blue Teams must defend real systems against a Red Team that launches real-time attacks. The annual scenario replicates current threats; in 2026, the focus was on crisis management and the protection of critical systems, two areas identified as priorities by all national cybersecurity agencies in recent years.

"At Locked Shields, teams are testing their skills in defending IT systems that make everyday life possible – including critical infrastructure, air defence and electronic voting systems," said Tõnis Saar, CCDCOE Director.

“The teams have demonstrated strong capabilities in detecting and responding to malign cyber activities. The key now is to turn the lessons learned into real training, all the more so as AI continues to transform both the defensive and offensive sides of the cyber domain.”

A Romanian at the top of the organization

The direction of this year’s exercise was assumed by Dan Ungureanu as Exercise Director Locked Shields 2026. Coordinating a Locked Shields-scale operation- almost 5,000 people globally involved, including organisers and industrial partners - is one of the most important cyber leadership positions a Romanian specialist occupies in NATO structures. For the Romanian cybersecurity ecosystem, the presence at this level is, by itself, a signal of human capital and institutional trust.

Winning team and ranking

The top three multinational teams ranked in the 2026 edition were: Latvia–Singapore (1st), Germany–Austria–Luxembourg–Switzerland (2nd) and France–Sweden (3rd). Team Romania–Ukraine–Moldova did not climb the podium, but their participation at this level – and the regional cooperation component with two neighbours directly exposed to cyber pressure – have strategic value in themselves. For Ukraine, Locked Shields is one of the few international platforms where their specialists can work side by side with colleagues from NATO states in a rigorous technical framework. For Moldova, participation strengthens the alignment with European cybersecurity standards.

What it means for the Romanian digital ecosystem

For DNSC, Locked Shields is not just an exercise; it is a standard against which the operational capability of the national teams is calibrated. The lessons learnt in Tallinn enter, in the coming weeks, into the training programmes of public administration specialists, companies designated as operators of essential services under the NIS2 Directive and national critical infrastructure specialists.

As the European Commission is gradually raising the bar for cyber resilience requirements through the Cyber Resilience Act and the NIS2 update, Romania’s ability to train and maintain specialists who can work at the highest level of NATO cooperation becomes one of the measurable components of so-called ‘digital sovereignty’. Locked Shields 2026 confirms that this capability exists; and that, through specialists such as Dan Ungureanu, it has international recognition.

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