Sokratis Katsikas: Towards cyber-resilient critical infrastructures and societies

Sokratis Katsikas from the Norwegian Center for Cybersecurity in Critical Sectors (NORCICS) will talk in his Keynote about Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure in Norway and Switzerland – Experiences, Insights and Perspectives From Science and Policy:

Modern societies increasingly depend on digitalized infrastructures for the delivery of essential services that support critical societal functions. The unquestionable benefits of digitalization to the economy and the society notwithstanding, the digitalization process has a significant downside: it comes with increased cybersecurity risks, that are due to the expansion of the attack surface of critical infrastructures. On the other hand, the capabilities and capacity of the threat agents, including nation-state sponsored ones, have increased multifold. Accordingly, the current cybersecurity doctrine is that digitalized infrastructures will be attacked; that some of the attacks will be successful and will need to be contained; and that some of these will even succeed to disrupt or downgrade the operation of the infrastructure and the delivery of the associated services. This leads to the motion that modern critical infrastructures should by design be cyber-resilient, so as to ensure societal cyber resilience. Cyber resilience is the ability to prevent, respond and quickly recover from events that have the potential to disrupt key societal functions, essential service delivery, or access to technology. A cyber-resilient society can spot early signals of disruption with an aim of preventing or reducing the impact on mission-critical service delivery. Achieving cyber resilience is a responsibility shared among the components of a quadruple helix, namely government, businesses, academia, and the public. Accordingly, strategies, policies, research, knowledge building, innovation and social awareness, preparedness, and capacity to contribute to cyber defense are called for. In this talk we will discuss European and national initiatives that aim at addressing these challenges.   

Sokratis K. Katsikas is the Director of the Norwegian Center for Cybersecurity in Critical Sectors and Professor with the Dept. of Information Security and Communication Technology of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His research activity has resulted in more than 300 published books; book chapters; journal papers; and papers in conference proceedings. He has led or participated in more than 60 funded national and international R&D projects. He recently joined the Greek Government as expert minister (ad interim): See article on LinkedIn

The keynote of Sokratis Katsikas is going to be followed by a conversation with Sophie Nägeli (NCSC Programme Manager and NCS Implementation Coordinator of the Swiss Confederation), moderated by PD Dr. Markus Christen (Managing Director of the DSI).

Of course we’ll invite you to an apéro riche after the event. Help stop Food Waste and register until 13. September 2023.