The 11th Conference of Cyber Conflict held in Tallinn last week reached this year a record-breaking attendance. Four days of interdisciplinary discussions featured a total of 30 workshops and sessions, 105 speakers, 29 academic papers in the conference proceedings, 645 participants, 47 nations and 5 continents – and a beach party. CyCon 2019 was proud to see the number of female speakers going up 75% from last year and the Women in Tech Breakfast becoming a much appreciated tradition.
CyCon 2019, probably the world’s first cyber conflict conference that was established 11 years ago, hosted high-level insightful keynotes and expert panels in technology, international law, election security, cyber operations and policy. Highlights of the CyCon 2019 keynote sessions included the official declaration of Estonia’s position on the applicability of international law in cyberspace and cyber operations in the opening address by Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid.
The Cyber Commander’s panel presented the cyber commanders of Germany, Italy and the United Stated European Command and Admiral (ret) Michael Rogers as the moderator discussing military elements in cyber. Information operations and cyber-enabled information operations were constantly brought up as two sides of the influence operations taking place in cyberspace.
Further discussions provided an insight into the hackability of critical infrastructure that the future, if not the present, already holds. The attendees had an opportunity to give a thought to the issue of trust in the ongoing digital revolution as well as if and how we can continute to deter our adversaries in cyberspace.
CyCon offered valuable perspectives from our key partners outside the transatlantic area as well as from the cyber defence community. Who are the strongest links in cybersecurity and how will hacking a country today actually look like were pondered by the presenters and the audience alike.
One of the practical deliverables of the CyCon was the Interactive Cyber Law Toolkit, a web-based resource for legal professionals and students launched at CyCon. The Toolkit is available free of charge at the following link https://cyberlaw.ccdcoe.org/wiki/Main_Page
The topic of CyCon 2020 taking place on 26-29 May in Tallinn, Estonia, will be 20/20 Vision: The Next Decade. The Call for Papers for CyCon 2020 will be announced in coming weeks. Meanwhile, we would like to remind you of the ongoing Call for Papers for CyCon U.S held in November 2019.
CyCon 2019 proceedings of 29 academic papers and recordings of most of the CyCon 2019 sessions will be made available soon at the CCDCOE website. Photos of the CyCon main conference and side events are available on Flickr (Credit to NATO CCDCOE and Kristi Sits/Egert Kamenik).
CyCon 2019 was organized by NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) and supported by Microsoft, Guardtime, EclecticIQ, Thinklogical, a Belden Brand, and IEEE.