Europe’s power and energy sector—spanning oil, gas, and rapidly expanding renewables—remains fundamental to all critical infrastructure. In today’s security climate, it faces escalating cyber and hybrid threats targeting IT, OT, and SCADA systems, alongside intensifying climate-driven disruptions. Ensuring resilience means anticipating attacks, reducing the impact of outages, and safeguarding interconnected grids. Strengthening Europe’s energy networks […]

Strengthening the Resilience of Critical Entities: Future-Proofing in Transport

Martin Hromada Researcher, Faculty of Applied Informatics
Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic

Workshop by Crisis Communications Network for Europe

Critical infrastructure faces increasingly complex and evolving threats. Cyberattacks are growing more sophisticated, terrorism remains a concern, and climate change is making natural disasters more unpredictable. New dangers such as drone attacks, misuse of artificial intelligence, evolving hybrid threats and state sponsored attacks further complicate the landscape. A key challenge is how to effectively identify, […]

Understanding how Chinese-nexus intrusions reshape cyber defence for Europe’s Critical Infrastructure operators

Emma Foulger Global Threat Operations Lead
Darktrace, UK

Emerging & Evolving Terrorist Threats against CI

Lina Kolesnikova Director of European & International Affairs/Fellow
ICPEM, Belgium

Workshop of Confederation of European Security Services

Modern critical infrastructure is deeply interconnected, making it increasingly vulnerable to cascading failures. Disruptions in one sector—such as energy, transport, or communications—can rapidly propagate across systems, amplifying impacts and complicating response efforts. Understanding these interdependencies is essential for effective protection and resilience. This session explores how to identify systemic risks, model cascading effects, and strengthen […]

From Compliance to Consequence: Engineering “Even If” Resilience for Europe’s Energy Systems

Ollie Gagnon Chief Homeland Security Advisor & Executive Director INL Resilience Optimization Center
Idaho National Laboratory (INL), USA

Cybersecurity for critical infrastructure has shifted from prevention alone to a broader focus on resilience. While strong defenses, threat detection, and response remain essential, today’s threat landscape demands the ability to withstand, adapt to, and rapidly recover from cyber incidents. This session explores the nature of increasingly sophisticated and disruptive cyber threats to proactive strategies […]

The Human Factor: Cyber Security Culture in European Critical Infrastructure

Laith Shahin Founder & CEO
Secolve, Australia

Mitigating Cybersecurity Risks in Legacy Healthcare Systems: Policy, Technology, and Response Strategies for Critical Infrastructure

Prof. Angela Wells MBA, Technologist, Chief Warrant Office 1 Cyber Reserve and InfraGard Board Member of Louisiana
City University of Seattle Washington, USA

Africa–Europe Cooperation for Critical Infrastructure Resilience Nigeria at the Forefront: Emerging Voices, Rising Together Youth Powering Regional Infrastructure Protection Hosted by: African Young People Support Centre (AYPSC) & African Smart Cities Innovation Foundation. For further details click here >>

Paul Igbinere Executive Director
African Young People Support Centre

Lessons learned from Ukraine – the most advanced real-world laboratory for modern critical infrastructure resilience under sustained attack – where the country is witnessing constant coordinated attacks. Listen to Ukraine’s experts tasked with keeping the lights on and goods moving. It’s the only large-scale, prolonged test of critical infrastructure under continuous cyberattacks, physical strikes (from […]

Dr Oleksandr Sukhodolia Head of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Energy and Ecological Security Department
National Institute for Strategic Studies, Ukraine

The transport and logistics sector is a cornerstone of critical infrastructure, enabling the movement of people, goods, and essential services. Increasing interconnectivity, digitalisation, and reliance on complex supply chains expose it to cyber, physical and hybrid threats. This session examines strategies to enhance resilience, protect key assets, and ensure continuity, focusing on risk management, cross-border […]

Developing Governance To Manage Security In Infrastructure Design Projects At Airports

Sarah Prew CSyP, AVSEC PM, MSYi, MRAeS Senior Aviation Security Consultant
Arup UK

Critical infrastructure resilience is increasingly constrained by workforce shortages and fragmented capabilities across sectors and borders. This session explores how skills gaps in cybersecurity, OT, and crisis management limit preparedness, and siloed operations hinder effective response. It will examine the urgent need for cross-sector coordination, improved information sharing, and aligned capability development. Attendees will gain […]

A Strategic Framework for National and Critical Infrastructure Resilience in the Hybrid Threats Era

Avi Bacher CEO
IsraTeam 98 Ltd

Pressuring the chain: tabletop exercises for stress-testing the Gold–Silver–Bronze command

Kim Covent Police Advisor
Ghent Local Police, Belgium

Maritime and subsea infrastructure now face an intensified threat landscape, from hybrid and cyber attacks on ports, vessels, and undersea cables to rising geopolitical tensions and sabotage risks. As digitalisation expands vulnerabilities, protecting this sector requires integrated resilience strategies, including integrating physical security, cybersecurity, and operational continuity, alongside stronger international collaboration to protect global trade […]

SIDMETICS: The Mediterranean Hub for the Protection of Submarine Critical Infrastructures

Francisco De Andres Perez CEO
CISO.es, Spain

Underwater Threats – CIP Water Frontier Expansion

Simon Goldsworthy Global Business Development Manager – Intruder Detection Systems
Forcys, UK

The latest technologies for detecting and predicting threats to critical national infrastructure span ground, land, underwater, space-based, and cyber domains, supported by advanced sensors and access control systems. Artificial intelligence increasingly enhances these capabilities by improving speed, accuracy, and cross-domain analysis of threat signals. New, developing systems and solutions enable earlier detection, better prediction, and […]

Cryptographic Keys in Access Control Systems for Critical Infrastructure

Harish Rasiah Business Development Manager
LEGIC Identsystems, Switzerland

Developing effective resilience strategies across the critical infrastructure community requires disciplined information sharing, strong preparedness, and robust risk mitigation and management. This session explores how organisations can identify, assess, and prioritise risks in a structured way, while reducing vulnerabilities and strengthening overall system resilience. It also examines how to embed continuity planning for potential disruptions […]

Insider Risk Management in Critical Infrastructure: A Path to Resilience and Compliance

Dennis Bijker CEO
Signpost Six, Netherlands

Get the risk wrong, get the response wrong

Dr Chris Needham-Bennett MD Needhams1834 Ltd and Visiting Professor University College London
Needhams 1834 Ltd, UK

Insider Risk Management in Critical Infrastructure: A Path to Resilience and Compliance

Isa Steijn Senior Adviser & Thought Leadership Lead
Signpost Six, Netherlands

Hybrid Workshop for the European Cluster for Securing Critical Infrastructures (ECSCI) Cluster The European Directive on Critical Entity Resilience (CER Directive, following the preceding directive on critical infrastructures (CIs), from 2008) is currently in the implementation phase. Adopted and published in 2022, it entered into force in 2023, and, on October 18, 2024 it became […]

Aleksandar Jovanovic CEO
Steinbeis EU-VRi (European Risk & Resilience Institute)

Drones present a growing threat to critical infrastructure due to their accessibility, manoeuvrability, and payload capabilities, enabling surveillance, disruption, or delivery of explosives. However, they can also support infrastructure protection through monitoring and response applications. This session examines the evolving drone threat landscape, available countermeasures, and the dual-use role of drones in both challenging and […]

AI plays a dual role in critical infrastructure cybersecurity, acting as both a defensive tool and a potential threat. It strengthens protection by improving threat detection, automating responses, and predicting attacks through advanced data analysis and anomaly detection. However, malicious actors can also exploit AI to develop more sophisticated attacks. We investigate how effective defence […]

Alexandru Georgescu Scientific Researcher
National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics, ICI Bucharest

Safety by Design: AI-Assisted Threat Detection That Protects Industrial Operations

Ali Mohammed Senior OT Cybersecurity Engineer
Resilience, Saudi Arabia

In this panel discussion, we will examine Europe’s current preparedness for systemic infrastructure disruption, exploring the persistent resilience gaps across Member States and critical entities, and its fragmented capabilities against the evolving hybrid threat landscape. In this engaging discussion, we will assess how current NIS2 and CER implementation is addressing these challenges, where governments and […]

Final Thoughts and Conference Closing Remarks

John Donlon QPM, FSyI Chairman
International Association of CIP Professionals