This year, TalTech ranked among the top three teams overall, while its communications and legal teams achieved an impressive second place in their categories.  The Estonian Maritime Academy kindly provided its facilities to the TalTech teams.

TalTech team leader Kristin Kerem said:
"I am extremely proud of our team, consisting of students, staff and selected partners. Setting a goal to excel in team communications, we ended up excelling in everything. Teamwork truly proved to be dream work this time. I am especially proud of how our team handled the surprises that arose during the exercise. Their ability to maintain situational awareness and make quick decisions under pressure is one of a kind. The TalTech team comprised more than 100 members."

“For our communications team, this was a strong result in an exceptionally demanding environment. Securing second place among such a competitive international field shows the level of expertise and teamwork we have built. The only team ahead of us was the University of Adelaide, which makes this achievement even more meaningful. Exercises like Locked Shields clearly demonstrate that effective cyber defence depends not only on technical capability, but also on clear, timely and strategic communication,” said Epp Joala, Head of Communications at TalTech.

Aliina Seppo added:
"We as a legal team are very proud of our result. The Locked Shields Partners’ Run is primarily aimed at gaining experience, but it is still carried out under high pressure. We proved that we are able to think rationally when needed and perform well. We also demonstrated our ability to provide high-level advisory support in crisis situations where rapid response is required."

This year’s Partners’ Run was the largest to date, with 16 Blue Teams putting their skills to the test. In addition to TalTech, participants included Adelaide University, Arvato Systems, Bitdefender, Ericsson, the Estonian Defence League & University of Tartu, Kapsi Internet-users Association, the National University of Public Service, the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA), the Polish Naval Academy, Siemens, St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, TechnoLogica, Telia Eesti, the University of Valladolid & the University of Zaragoza, and the Joint AI Research Team (armasuisse, CCDCOE, NLDA).

The exercise serves as the main rehearsal for Locked Shields – the world’s largest live-fire cyber defence exercise – and brings together experts from academia, industry and defence institutions to train and test their cyber defence capabilities.

“Locked Shields is the most complex and demanding cyber defence exercise in the world, designed for national teams. The Partners’ Run also offers companies, universities and defence organisations an opportunity to collaborate and train their specialists in the same demanding environment across technical, legal, strategic decision-making and communications tracks. Success in the Partners’ Run requires strong performance across all these domains,” said Dan Ungureanu, Locked Shields 2026 Exercise Director.

“Locked Shields is a highly advanced technical exercise in which we have built critical infrastructure systems that modern societies rely on. This complex environment requires thorough testing. We are very grateful to all our partners, as the insights gained here directly contribute to improving the exercise environment for national teams during the main execution,” Ungureanu added.

Locked Shields 2026 will take place in April and will bring together more than 4,000 cyber experts from over 40 nations to practise protecting critical infrastructure and military systems from cyberattacks.