Compliance is no longer a burden on the back office, but a strategic factor. We will examine how companies can integrate legal requirements (data protection, cybersecurity laws, new AI/technology rules) into their core businesses and transform requirements into levers for resilience, stakeholder trust and business value. Key topics include cyber-by-design, auditability, supplier responsibility and continuity in the face of disruption.

AI and intelligent agents are changing the way security is ensured, but with great power comes great risk. We will look at the pragmatic use of AI: governance models, safeguards against misuse, prioritising high-impact use cases, and aligning AI systems with trust, transparency and accountability.

Detection, response, and recovery are now continuous cycles rather than discrete events. We will delve into advanced analytics, managed detection and response, orchestration, external threat visibility (supply chain, third parties), and resilience metrics to operationalise security effectiveness.

Technology alone does not guarantee security. Leadership, culture and skills development must be aligned. We will focus on transforming teams, embedding security responsibility across functions, and empowering leaders to speak the language of risk and trust with the board, CEOs and business units.

Violations will always occur, but how a company responds to them is crucial. We cover crisis communication, forensic measures, dealing with regulatory authorities, insurance, restoring stakeholder trust and turning adversity into credibility.

Different industries and environments have unique security requirements. We focus on securing critical infrastructure (energy, utilities), connected devices and IoT, healthcare, finance, and new environments such as smart cities and industrial systems.

The deadline for implementing the second EU Directive on the security of network and information systems (NIS 2) expired in October 2024, with only a handful of Member States having fulfilled this task.

At the NATO summit in The Hague a few weeks ago, member states committed to spending 5% of their annual GDP on core defence requirements and defence and security-related expenditure by 2035.

Identity and access management (IAM) and, consequently, identity security is one of the biggest and most consequential challenges facing all European companies today from an operational and risk management perspective.