Conclusions from Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience, Europe 2017
May 2017 by
Last week’s CIPRE in The Hague once again brought together some of the leading
figures from the European and world critical infrastructure protection community to
discuss some challenges faced by agencies, operators and industry in ensuring that
CNI is safeguarded. Immediately followed by the WannaCry ransomware cyber-attack on
many CNI sites worldwide, these discussions couldn’t be more important.
Once again speaker after speaker emphasised the need for greater co-operation,
dialogue and sharing between all stakeholders, across sectors and across borders, if
we are to successfully ensure security and resilience.
Conference Chairman and Chairman of the International Association of Critical
Infrastructure Protection Professionals (IACIPP) John Donlon QPM said "CIPRE 2017
was a significant event where like-minded people had the opportunity to discuss
areas of concern and to take away new ideas and initiatives. I was truly impressed
by the quality of presenters, the broad range of topics addressed and the detailed
discussions that took place.
During CIPRE 2017 we had some excellent presentations by some distinguished and
experienced people across the whole range of Infrastructure and Information issues.
We were fortunate to have speakers from Government, Academia and Operators
articulating detail on both current and developing areas of activity, not only
within Europe but also on a global scale.
The EU Commission provided detail on new programmes of activity clearly referencing
European concerns around the escalation of Cyber activity and the need to continue
to build Public Private Partnerships, and both these areas were significant themes
throughout a conference which covered a wide range of topics from-Hybrid Warfare -
Prioritisation Modelling - Regulations and Standards and even the impact of Cyber,
Social Media and Fake News on elections."
The recurring themes throughout the conference included:
* The importance of trust and collaboration
* Sharing of information and best practise across sectors and borders
* PPP’s are fundamental to security and resilience
* Benefits of successful PPP’s
* Identification of single points of failure and interdependency
* Need to understand the nature of vulnerabilities and to prioritise activity
* Speed of change within Cyber activity
* Balance across - Prevention - Detection and Reaction
* Need to learn from each other
* Insider Threat
Finally, John Donlon QPM challenged delegates to join the International Association
of CIP Professionals and start sharing information via the IACIPP extranet
www.iacipp.net<http://www.iacipp.net>
and invited them to reconvene again later in
the year for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience, North
America<http://ciprna-expo.com/>
Florida, December 5-7th 2017 and Critical
Infrastructure Protection and Resilience, Europe<http://www.cipre-expo.com/>
in The
Hague in 2018.