IT Security Summit Barcelona
Securing an AI-Powered Business
Navigating the new frontier of trust, compliance and innovation
The IDC IT Security Spain Summit 2026 is the definitive event for business, security, and technology leaders to explore how to embed trust, governance, and resilience at the core of digital transformation.
Spain is entering a decisive phase in its digital and cybersecurity evolution. According to IDC’s latest research, IT security spending in Spain is projected to grow at a double-digit rate through 2028, driven by increasing cyber threat activity, AI adoption, and cloud modernization initiatives. The country’s cybersecurity agenda, aligned with the EU AI Act, NIS2 Directive, and DORA, underscores a national commitment to resilience, data protection, and digital sovereignty. IDC also notes that software, cloud-native security, and analytics solutions will represent the fastest-growing segments of Spain’s cybersecurity market, as organizations move toward integrated and intelligence-led protection models.
Agenda
The IDC IT Security Summit, is the ultimate meeting point for business, security, and technology leaders looking to embed trust, governance, and resilience at the heart of their digital transformation strategies.
Join IDC analysts and industry experts to explore how to build trusted digital ecosystems that combine innovation with assurance. Gain insights into Spain’s most dynamic sectors — including finance, energy, manufacturing, and public services — and walk away with actionable frameworks to make security a strategic differentiator, not just a reactive cost.
2026 Prediction
By 2028, 40% of enterprises will use autonomous agent–powered cyber-risk quantification platforms to turn security metrics into financial exposure, guiding budgets, controls, and M&A risk assessments.
Main Themes
Regulation, Resilience and Value Creation
Regulatory compliance is no longer a back-office burden, it’s a strategic enabler. We will explore how organizations can embed regulatory mandates (data privacy, cybersecurity laws, emerging AI/tech rules) into core operations, turning requirements into levers for resilience, stakeholder trust, and business value. Keytopics include cyber-by-design, auditability, vendor accountability, and continuity in the face of disruption.
AI, Automation and Responsible Innovation
AI and intelligent agents are transforming how security is delivered, but with great power comes risk. We will explore pragmatically deploying AI: governance models, guardrails for misuse, prioritization of high-impact use cases, and aligning AI systems with trust, transparency, and accountability.
Operations, Analytics and Resilience Engineering
Detection, response, and recovery are now continuous cycles rather than discrete events. We’ll delve into advanced analytics, managed detection & response, orchestration, external threat visibility (supply chain, third parties), and resilience metrics to operationalize security effectiveness.
The Human Factor: Leadership and Culture
Technology alone doesn’t guarantee security. Leadership, culture, and skill development must align. We will focus on transforming teams, embedding security ownership across functions, and equipping leaders to speak the language of risk and trust to the board, CEOs, and business lines.
Incident and Trust Recovery
Breaches will happen, but what matters is how an organization responds. We will cover crisis communication, forensic response, regulatory handling, insurance, stakeholder trust restoration, and turning adversity into credibility.
Sector and Domain Security Challenges
Different industries and environments pose unique security demands. We will focus on securing critical infrastructure (energy, utilities), connected devices and IoT, healthcare, finance, and emerging environments like smart cities or industrial systems.
2026 Prediction
By 2028, AI agents will be triaging 80% of SOC alerts in the majority of SOCs worldwide.
IDC Analysts
Joel Stradling
Research Director, European Security
IDC
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Joel Stradling
As research director for IDC’s European Security practice, Joel Stradling leads the content and analyst team for tracking the European security segment. His main focus area is the integration of network plus security and evolution of network architectures towards software-defined secure access.
Stradling has 20 years of experience as an analyst of international managed enterprise network and IT services. He is a regular speaker at major industry conferences talking about emerging technologies in B2B enterprise network and IT and wholesale carrier-to-carrier services. Joel is a well-known and highly regarded expert in the industry, offering insight and advice to C-level executives on technology competitive landscapes and emerging technologies, such as SD-WAN, 5G, SDN/NFV, and cyber-security.
Daniel-Zoe Jimenez
Vice President Research
IDC
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Daniel-Zoe Jimenez
Daniel-Zoe Jimenez is Associate Vice President for IDC’s Asia/Pacific region, based in Singapore. He leads the regional Digital Transformation (DX), Future Enterprise and SMB research practices.
Daniel provides strategic advisory services to the C-Suite (CIOs, CDOs, CMOs, CHROs and CFOs) on how to develop and leverage new business, technology (e.g. AI and Analytics, Cloud, Mobility, IoT) and operating models to become more competitive. He delivers workshops and strategic engagements for customers across Asia/Pacific such as assessing maturity, identifying gaps, crafting strategies and technology roadmaps, determining ecosystem readiness, metrics (KPIs), and skills required to drive growth and profitability.
Daniel leads a team of analysts across Asia/Pacific who provide thought leadership research and insights to technology buyers, suppliers and government institutions on the impact that the evolving market changes, and the new and established technologies have on their businesses.
Earlier in IDC, Daniel was the co-lead for the Big Data/Analytics research practice. Today, he also has a leading role in the Asia/Pacific customer experience (CX), marketing, commerce and broader enterprise applications (e.g. ERP, HCM and CRM) research.
Daniel is a frequent speaker at IDC and client events, as well as in seminars in the region; and is often quoted in business and IT publications.
Daniel has more than 20 years of international experience with large organizations worldwide, from consulting to ICT and market research. Prior to joining IDC, Daniel worked for four years with Fujitsu Services handling presales and marketing roles. He also held a global role with Accenture for almost four years in the marketing and presales groups within the Financial Services Group. At Datamonitor’s London office, Daniel held the positions of research manager and business analyst, covering the internet, telco and mobility markets.
Daniel holds a Bachelor in Philosophy degree with focused on Science, Mind, and Language — courses in Psychology and Anthropology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.
Host Partner
SOFTENG
Softeng is a technology consulting firm specializing in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, recognized as a Microsoft Top Cloud Partner. Its mission is to support its clients by maximizing the power of the Microsoft cloud to drive digital innovation with security and intelligence, offering the advice and guidance of an elite team of experts with proprietary methodologies and solutions.
With more than 15 years of experience in the cloud, it is present in the most significant sectors of the economy and society, with the vision of enabling all ambitious companies to continuously adopt digital innovation, remaining secure in order to progress and remain competitive.
Gold Partner
ESET
ESET is the largest EU-based B2B cybersecurity provider, protecting over 1 billion users and over 600,000 businesses globally. Privately owned by its original founders and growing every year since 1987, ESET delivers AI-native prevention, powered by 11 global R&D centres — including Montreal, which specializes in APT research. With 24/7 MDR, a Canadian data centre, and 2.5 billion URLs processed daily, ESET combines world-class threat intelligence with local support to keep Canadian organizations secure and uninterrupted.
Venue
Barcelona
Knowledge Hub
The NIS 2 directive – where are we now?
The deadline for the transposition of the EU’s second Network and Information Systems Security directive (NIS 2) came and went in October 2024 with only a handful of member states having completed the task.
European ICT spending implications of NATO’s 5% GDP spending target
At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague a few weeks ago, member states pledged to allocate 5% of their annual GDP to core defense requirements and defense- and security-related expenditures by 2035.
IAM 2025: The Rise of the Machines
Identity and access management (IAM), and by extension, identity security, is one of the most pervasive and impactful challenges facing all European organizations today, from an operational and risk management perspective.
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