Your IE Editor recently attended the ONE Conference in The Hague, the city of peace and justice. But in a volatile world cyber attacks, denial of service, ransomware and more were all in focus during the week. Let’s get into it, with a second feature looking at typical hacker tactics and defences coming soon on IE.
THE THEME IS CO-OPERATION, SHARING KNOWLEDGE
The annual event brings together government agencies from around Europe and beyond, cyber security experts, academic institutions, supplier companies and more. Speaker panels look at various topics and there are even closed sessions, where sensitive information of how cyber attacks were dealth with, or prevented can offer insights from dutch Police and specialised security services.
As many insurers know, much of the cyber activity that seeks to damage or compromise systems is linked to organised crimes, or is backed by States, or freelancers acting for those States agencies.
Interestingly, Europol’s HQ (below) is next to the Forum where the ONE Conference takes place and useful insights were shared on how the dark web Hansa site was seized and taken down by the Dutch authorities. For many insurers it will not be surprising that criminals were using the site the trade crypto, launder money into assets, buy guns etc.
The IFB and City of London Police do great work exposing organised claims fraud in the UK and IE believes that closer partnership between Europol and the IFB can only be a good thing, regardless of political arguments over Brexit/rejoining.
PARTNERSHIPS CAN PROTECT VITAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Part of the event was a visit to SeaSEC, which is a really timely project, as infrastructure become a target for various hackers and States alike. From gas and oil pipelines and installations like refineries, to connecting cables from wind farms, or land based power grids to other countries, all this stuff is a target. And the consequences of outages can be severe.
SeaSEC involves Norway, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden and they have regular tests near ports, plus small test zone out in the North Sea. One potential problem is that ships sometimes switch off their satellite id tracker, which if the vessel is near a rig, turbine installation or cable, can be suspicious. SeaSEC are looking at ways to reduce those risks, test new tech like remote control submersibles, undersea mapping tools and harbour protection. They hold Challenge Weeks, where a port like Gothenburg say would run a simulated attack and another team would defend it. SeaSEC also plans to utilise a decommisioned gas platform to test various drone related tech. Obviously a wise move given the devastating power of drone attacks in the Ukraine conflict.
Again projects like this offer a great opportunity for companies like insurers, or Lloyd’s marine specialists, to get involved, there are currently about 100 companies working with SeaSEC.
THE FUTURE OF AI, A FORCE FOR GOOD?
Several Netherlands politicians made speeches at the ONE Conference and the overall theme was all about collabs between agencies, implementing directives like the Cyber Resilience Act, which seeks to “bake in” cyber protection to every connected device and moving faster on prevention, workforce training and online defence.
One government spokesperson noted; “We have a new directive and at present there are maybe 10 Dutch authorities responsible for implementing it, we have to change that and move much faster.”
Another keynote speaker, David Van Weel, Minister of Justice and Security saw AI as being a potential force for good, commenting;
“I don’t believe AI will destroy humanity, it can be a force for good, helping to innovate new products and fill gaps in the labour market. Taking the burden of admin away can free up nursing staff to spend more time with patients for example. Like fire, AI can be used for progress, it can be tamed. We have to shift into a higher gear on AI development in Europe.”
IE met with academic organisations who have cyber training progams, companies developing games to help staff become more cyber aware in the workplace. Experts in hacking. Psychologists looking at behavioural nudge experiments on things like passwords, and preventing phishing.
There is a huge amount to learn, a chance to connect with specialists across the cyber field. It’s all at the ONE Conference in The Hague. The city has an ambition to become a centre for cybersecurity expertise and that’s an essential ambition these days.
Part Two of our coverage will look in more detail at various cyber attacks and how organisations dealt with them.
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