From awareness to action: SME Cyber Security
Despite their economic importance Dutch SMEs lag behind in implementing cybersecurity. To strengthen cyber resilience of SMEs in the region, THUAS, Connect2Trust, and the municipality of The Hague launched a platform in 2025 to facilitate collaboration between SMEs from various sectors. A cyber maturity survey was conducted to serve as a baseline measurement, showing three […]
The Threats of High Power IoT on the Power Grid
More and more devices are being connected to the electricity grid, including High Power IoT. Examples are solar inverters, electric cars, and heat pumps. This presents opportunities, but also many dangers. What are these dangers? What laws and regulations apply to this High Power IoT on the power grid? And what would be possible solutions […]
Geopolitical Liminality in Cyberspace
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” — Antonio Gramsci Writing from prison, Antonio Gramsci described the world he lived in as liminal and unstable – seeing an old order fade and a new yet to emerge. He called these “times of monsters”: […]
Set-top boxes: your personal unwanted proxy
Residential proxies are increasingly used not only for legitimate purposes—such as AI training and secure browsing—but also by cybercriminals and state actors to obscure indicators of compromise and launch large-scale DDoS attacks. The NCSC-NL has observed a sharp rise in such abuse, making attacks harder to detect and mitigate. This presentation first explores NCSC’s research […]
Cyber Operations and Critical Infrastructure in Conflict
This session provides an intelligence‐based assessment of state actor cyber operations against critical infrastructure before and during armed conflict. Using the Venezuelan energy case and lessons from Russian operations in Ukraine, it examines what cyber tools actually achieved, their limits, and why the Venezuelan case is not directly comparable to Europe. The talk offers a […]
Power, Trust, Responsibility in Fragmented Digital World
Cybersecurity has evolved into a strategic domain at the intersection of geopolitics, economic stability, and societal resilience. Rising global tensions are shaping cyber threats with real-world impacts, while collective defense through international and public–private cooperation becomes essential. The digital space faces a growing tension between anonymity and accountability, as misuse fuels cybercrime and erodes trust. […]
The upcoming Cyber Security Assessment Netherlands 2026
The Cybersecurity Assessment Netherlands (CSAN, CSBN in Dutch) is published annually. It provides insight into digital threats, national security interests, and resilience. The report is produced by the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV), in cooperation with public, private, and academic partners. This Talk about the CSAN 2026 will highlight the key findings of […]
CISO survey insights: trends & priorities for 2026
This presentation draws on a 2026 survey and interview series with 27 cybersecurity leaders in the Netherlands to show how CISO priorities are evolving under pressure from regulation, AI, operational complexity, and growing reliance on cloud and third parties. The findings reveal a shift away from traditional control-focused security toward stronger auditability, resilience, monitoring maturity, […]
Storage Spoofing – where digital and physical crime meet
This presentation is hosted by a chemical company and a team of the Dutch police. We showcase an ongoing crime where cybersecurity and physical crime blend, in the world of Rotterdam’s oil and chemical storage. It starts with the tracking of a very persistent threat actor who uses domain typosquatting and near perfect BEC fraud […]
Cybersecurity Made in Europe: Ambition without an industry?
Europe’s cybersecurity runs almost entirely on American technology. From endpoint detection and cloud security to threat intelligence and vulnerability databases, American companies dominate every layer of the cybersecurity stack. European providers remain predominantly national or regional players and often offer services rather than technology. No European company can provide the pan-European coverage that CrowdStrike, Palo […]