In its sixth edition and in an increasingly complex digital environment, Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress (BCC) will insist on the need for companies and industries to consider cybersecurity as a strategic element of their organization in order to minimize the chances of suffering cyberattacks that could put their security and their full performance at risk. To this end, the BCC has designed an extensive programme of activities and workshops, which will take place in its Hacking Village.

Organised by Fira de Barcelona together with the Agència de Ciberseguretat de Catalunya (ACC), the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress will connect all agent in the cybersecurity ecosystem from 13 to 15 May at the Gran Via venue to address the challenges that the industrial sector has to face in an increasingly digitalised world.

The greater use of digital tools, in general, and the expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI), in particular, have led to an increase in the degree of vulnerability of industries and companies, which are more exposed to cyberattacks.

In this sense, and with the aim of raising awareness in the industrial sector of the need to deploy better protection measures and systems, the BCC has promoted, with the support of Beaware, CaixaBank Tech, Crowdstrike, EC-Council, Cyberwatch, SentinelOne, S21SEC and Trend Micro, the ‘Hacking Village’, the ethical hacking area of the show with a comprehensive programme of activities, workshops and presentations.

Thus, some hackers will put their skills into practice in two capture the flag (CTF) competitions and share their knowledge through talks and practical workshops on issues such as large language models (LLMs) for the development of Generative AI and the role of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), among other topics, in order to provide advice and practical indications on how best to hinder the action of cybercriminals.

Cybercrime seems to have no end. In Spain, the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) handled a total of 97,348 cybersecurity incidents in 2024, which represents an increase of 16.6% compared to 2023. Likewise, a total of 183,851 vulnerable systems were detected and reported, susceptible of being the target of an attack.

Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress will be held jointly with IOT Solutions World Congress at the Gran Via venue, shaping the main global event on digital transformation, AI applied to industry and cybersecurity, with the participation of 250 companies and the presence of 100 experts from all over the world.