A CYBER STORY IN CONSTANTA

It was already quite hot that morning of July. The Black Sea was shimmering outside the window of the Nautical Base of Constanța Maritime University where the first “CyberSea Festival 2025″was just starting. The meeting room, renamed for the occasion “Dracula’s Den” to keep alive traditional stereotypes for foreign visitors, was full of students, young professionals, experts, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders in digital debating the merits of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

The lead theme of the event was “Phishing at Constanța” but the organisers planned to host keynotes and fireside chats also on AI-driven cyberattacks, deepfakes and disinformation with hands-on workshops, mentoring sessions, CTF competitions, and a job fair tailored to young talents. There were also interactive thematic zones such as Lockpicking & IoT, AI & VR, Startup & Innovation, and contributions from Women4Cyber.

That morning the atmosphere was buzzing with excitement as students and professionals mingled, shared ideas, and attended workshops on ethical hacking, network defence and more. The snacks were plentiful, the caffeine was flowing, and Professor Andrei Popescu, the conference organizer, beamed with pride: “This is exactly what Romania needs: young minds excited about cybersecurity collaborating on the future of digital security!” He adjusted his bow tie, which somehow matched both his socks and his PowerPoint theme.

The morning had featured impressive speakers, interactive workshops, and enough coffee to power a small city. By early afternoon, participants were settling in for a panel discussion on “Why Your Password Shouldn’t Be Your Dog’s Name”. The first panellist was just saying that obviously this should not be done because one does not want to change the name of the dog every 6 months, when the projector suddenly flickered. The presenter’s slides were replaced by a pixelated skull wearing what appeared to be a digital fez. The microphones squealed, and the conference Wi-Fi crashed harder than a vampire at a garlic festival. A cyber-attack had struck!

“Is this part of the demonstration?” whispered a confused student.

It was not.

Someone yelled, pointing at a rapidly scrolling text banner proclaiming, “Greetings from Hackistan! Your systems are now ours!”

The attendees gasped, some instinctively clutching their wallets closer, a habit ingrained from years of pickpocket warnings.

Suddenly, the conference’s digital infrastructure became crazy: the smart lighting system began pulsing in an alarming disco pattern, and the digital coffee machines went haywire, dispensing espresso shots at random intervals. Panic spread among the attendees and the room fell silent for a moment, as everyone realized they were under a cyber-attack.

The Romanian students, fuelled by their love for technology and a steady diet of mititei, sprang into action. “It’s coming from Hackistan!” shouted Ion, a brilliant student with a knack for network forensics and a penchant for wearing his grandmother’s hand-knitted sweaters. “They’re likely using a zero-day exploit!”

“Oh, come on!” groaned Maria, a 25-year-old coding prodigy who could debug code faster than her grandma could peel potatoes for mămăligă, member of the Romanian Chapter of Women4Cyber and proudly wearing bright pink hair and a laptop that looked like it had survived a war. “They always like to attack with a new zero-day and test it on us.”

“What’s a zero-day?” asked Mihai, who had just joined the conference to escape his family’s insistence on finding him a wife. “A day with no coffee?” “No,” Maria sighed, “it’s a secret flaw in software that hackers exploit before anyone can fix it—like sneaking garlic into sarmale!” “

“Zero-day?” whispered her friend, Vlad, wide-eyed. “This looks more like a zero-brain, judging by the goat.”

Mirela Dumitrescu, a 24-year-old security researcher with three energy drinks in her system, stood on a chair and shouted over the chaos. “Everyone calm down! This is just a cyber attack. We literally came here to learn about these!”

The crowd settled. Professor Popescu climbed onto the stage, his bow tie now mysteriously askew. “This is… unexpected. But perhaps an excellent learning opportunity?”

The Romanian youths huddled together, their fingers dancing over keyboards as they analysed the attack. Someone checked the attack’s digital fingerprints and whispered, “Yes, Hackistan again.”

Hackistan, a mysterious land renowned for its hackers who could crack a blockchain with a rusty keyboard had struck again. But this wasn’t the work of some shadowy cybercrime syndicate (China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, or even US …). This time, it wasn’t a malicious attack; it was an exercise by brilliant (and mischievous) students hacker students from Hackistan University. While sipping on their traditional hacker beverage, “Mountain Code” (a mysterious concoction said to enhance coding skills) they were just trying out a new “Chaos Kernel” – a zero-day that, instead of stealing data, aimed to create maximum digital pandemonium. Their professor had probably said, “Go practice in a sandbox,” but thinking at “sand” they got inspired to test it on the beaches of the Black Sea. Finding that the CyberSea Festival was just starting, they figured that a cybersecurity conference would be an “interesting” target.

Within minutes, a group of quick-thinking Romanian students sprang into action led by Andrei (a guy in a “Yes, We Love Vampires” T-shirt) and created a team to respond, calling themselves “Team Hackula”, forming an impromptu war room in the corner of the venue. They were fuelled by a mix of caffeine, pastries and righteous indignation.

“We need to restore the Wi-Fi and stop this madness!” declared Maria, introducing in the system a patch she developed from an ancient Dacian encryption method “borrowed” from her history thesis.

They rebooted the network using a VPN disguised as “Digital Tomis”, the founding name of Constanța, back in 600 B.C. “We can’t let them win! We have to show them that we’re not just good at making sarmale!” shouted Andrei.

They began analysing the attack with vampire-like tenacity, their fingers flying over keyboards faster than a horse-drawn cart on a bumpy road. They indeed discovered that the Hackistani hackers were using a new zero-day exploit.

Mirela cracked her knuckles dramatically. “Well then, let’s show them what Romanian students can do.”

The Romanian students not only managed to restore basic services but also identified the source of the attack tracing it back to the Technical University of Hackistan and a questionable username like “H4ck3r_Boi_420.”

The Hackistani hackers were busy celebrating their “victory” with a virtual party, complete with digital kebabs and pixelated drinks. They were so confident that they didn’t notice the Romanian counterattack coming.

The Romanian students decided to fight fire with fire—or rather, hack with hack. They created a virtual Trojan horse, disguised as a tempting offer for discounted Turkish rugs. The Hackistani hackers, unable to resist a good deal, clicked the link, inadvertently giving the Romanians access to their systems.

Using some typical Romanian stereotypes to their advantage, the Team Hackula sent a message to the Hackistan hackers, saying, “We have Dracula on our side, and he’s thirsty for some Hackistan blood! We’ve hacked your kebabs! They’re now filled with garlic and sour cream!”

They also modified the Hackistani students’ desktop backgrounds to display a scoreboard: “ROMANIA: 1, HACKISTAN: 0” with a small cartoon of Dracula wagging his finger.

The Hackistani hackers, confused and slightly horrified, paused their celebration. “What kind of sorcery is this?” one of them exclaimed. “Garlic? No way! We can’t let them ruin our kebabs!”. The Hackistan students, amused by the reference, responded with a meme of a vampire sipping coffee.

Soon, a real game of hacking and counter-hacking began between the youths of Romania and Hackistan.

What ensued was a digital battle of epic proportions, what would later be dubbed “The Black Sea Byte Battle”, a escalating series of harmless but increasingly creative digital pranks between the two student groups.

The Hackistanis launched a barrage of malware, but the Romanians deflected it with firewalls shaped like Dracula’s castle. When the attackers tried to breach their defences with a brute force attack, the Romanians countered with a password so long and complex, it included the entire text of “Miorița,” the famous Romanian ballad.

When the Hackistanis hijacked the Nautical Base electronic welcome sign to display “Romania: Great Vampires, Mediocre Firewalls,” the Romanian team retaliated by infiltrating the Hackistani university radio station and replacing all songs with “Dragostea Din Tei” (the famous “Numa Numa” song) on repeat.

“They picked the wrong country to mess with,” Mirela declared, fuelled by her fourth energy drink. “Everyone knows Romanians invented improvisation. My uncle once fixed a satellite dish with a duct tape and two forks!”

But the Hackistanis weren’t ready to throw in the towel. They retaliated by sending a wave of virtual “vampire bats” to the Romanian networks. The Romanian students, however, were ready. They deployed a digital “garlic firewall” that neutralized the bats and turned them into harmless pixels.

The back-and-forth continued, each side trying to outdo the other with creative and humorous hacks. The Hackistani team managed to hack into the convention center’s catering system, changing the afternoon’s snack order from traditional Romanian pastries to a delivery of 200 garlic bread loaves with a note: “We heard this keeps Romanian IT specialists strong!” “They’re also using our stereotypes but against us,” Ioana observed, munching appreciatively on the garlic bread.

By late afternoon, the conference organizers—initially horrified—were now doubled over with laughter, marvelling at the chaos. “This is better than the keynote!” one exclaimed, wiping tears of joy from her eyes.

The Hackistanis attempted also to breach the conference’s backup server, but they found it protected by what the Romanian team proudly called “The Dracula Firewall”—a series of security measures that “only activated after sunset.”

“Romanians don’t just use garlic to keep vampires away,” explained Dragos to the impressed conference attendees. “It also makes an excellent network security metaphor.”

The Romanian team retaliated by accessing the Hackistani academy’s printer network and sending an endless stream of documents titled “Vampiric Encryption: Algorithms That Only Work After Sunset – A Romanian Specialty.”

As evening approached, the battle intensified. In the meantime, the Romanian team managed to access the Hackistani academy’s temperature control system. Rather than cause discomfort, they programmed it to fluctuate by just one degree every hour—not enough to notice immediately, but enough to create a vague sense of unease throughout the building.

“In Romania, we know psychological warfare begins with slight discomfort,” Simona explained proudly. “My grandmother could make guests confess secrets just by making her living room subtly too warm.”

The Romanian team, now operating at peak caffeinated efficiency, unleashed a major weapon inspired by their tradition: the “Grandma’s Knit Sweater Algorithm.” This algorithm, based on the complex patterns of traditional Romanian knitwear, created a digital tangle that effectively trapped the Hackistani attack within a virtual “sweater.”

By dawn, both sides were exhausted but still trading digital blows.

The final turning point came when Mirela discovered that the Hackistani team’s main weakness was their passion for food and coffee. She sent back images of delicious sarmale, causing the Hackistanis to lose focus as their stomachs growled in envy. Having discovered that they were ordering coffee using an unsecured app., in a move of tactical brilliance, the Romanian team didn’t shut it down, instead, they doubled the Hackistani coffee order and added a note: “From your Romanian friends. Good game.”

Confused and caffeine-deprived, the Hackistani students accepted the gesture and realizing they had been bested by a group of pastry-loving Romanians, conceded defeat. “Alright, you win this round! But we’ll be back!” they typed. “Your defence is impressive. Perhaps we can learn from each other instead of fighting? Besides, our professor just discovered what we’ve been doing and is… not pleased.”

Professor Popescu considered the thing for a moment and said to his students. “Invite them to video conference. Let’s see what they have to say.”

Minutes later, the main screen displayed the faces of fifteen sheepish Hackistani students and their furious-looking professor.

“We offer our sincere apologies,” the professor began stiffly. “My students were supposed to be practicing on our internal test systems, not launching actual attacks on international conferences.”

“We got carried away,” admitted one student. “But your countermeasures were amazing! How did you implement that gradual temperature change? We didn’t even detect it until our systems administrator started wearing a sweater and shorts simultaneously.”

Mirela leaned back, grinning. “They’re not so bad,” she whispered to Maria. “A bit reckless, but who hasn’t pulled an all-nighter coding chaos?’”

Tension dissolved into technical discussion. Soon, both sides were exchanging notes, comparing techniques, and debating security methodologies.

Professor Popescu, seeing an opportunity, stepped forward. “Why don’t we make this official? Your students could join our final day remotely. We can even add a special session: ‘Case Study of a Live Attack and Defense.'”

The Hackistani professor, relief evident on his face, nodded enthusiastically. “An excellent suggestion. Perhaps something positive can come from my students’ reckless behaviour.”

The conference organizers were astounded, having never expected their event to turn into an international cyber-showdown. They’d expected presentations, not a live-action cyber battle. “This,” one of them wearing a sweater with written “I LOVE COBOL”, gasped saying: “is the best team-building exercise I’ve ever seen!”

Professor Popescu, who had spent most of the cyber battle stress-eating from the buffet, was ecstatic.

“This is unprecedented!” he announced at the closing ceremony, his bow tie somehow now on his wrist like a watch. “What began as an attack has become a bridge between nations! A disaster transformed into diplomacy!”

As the dust settled, the Team Hackula celebrated their win with a feast of mici and Țuică. The Hackistani hackers, impressed by their opponents’ skills, sent a message of congratulations… along with a polite inquiry about where they could purchase some of that delicious Romanian cuisine they’d seen pictures of.

The final day of the conference became its most memorable. The joint Romanian-Hackistani session drew every attendee, with both teams reconstructing their digital battle step by step, explaining techniques and fielding questions.

As the end of the conference, the organizers announced a special award for the Romanian students: “Best Live Demonstration of Cybersecurity Skills.” The students accepted the award with pride, knowing they had not only defended their conference but also made some new friends (and rivals) in Hackistan.

And so, the cybersecurity conference in Constanța became legendary, not just for its workshops and lectures, but for the epic hacking battle that had everyone talking for years to come.

As the participants packed up to leave, Mirela received one final message from the Hackistani team: “Next year, conference in Hackistan? Bring your own garlic -BYOG.”

She laughed and typed back: “Only if you’re ready to lose on your home turf.”

Later, as the Romanian team was ready to leave, Simona nudged Pavel. “Did you remove the temperature fluctuation program from their building?”

Pavel smiled innocently. “Of course. But I may have left them a small digital gift. Every year on this date, all their computer screensavers will display a dancing Dracula for exactly one minute.”

“Is that wise?” Ioana asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Absolutely,” Radu laughed. “It’s the Romanian way of marking your territory in cybersecurity. Not harmful, slightly annoying, technically impressive, and—most importantly—it reminds them who won.”

“Nobody won,” Professor Popescu corrected. “It was a productive draw.”

The team nodded seriously in agreement—but exchanged secret winks when she turned away.

After all, as any Romanian cybersecurity expert knows, the best victories are the ones that transform into friendships—but still go down in the record books as technical triumphs.

And somewhere in Hackistan, fifteen students were already planning how to respond to next year’s dancing Dracula with their own digital calling card. The game was far from over—it had only evolved into something more interesting.