The Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress will focus on stopping cyber-attacks on industry

The digitization of factories and companies around the world makes them more agile, competitive and sustainable, but also more vulnerable. For this reason, leading firms will showcase the latest digital protection solutions and systems for the industry at the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress (BCC), which will take place from May 21 to 23 at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue. The international cybersecurity event will also feature leading experts who will discuss the main risks and challenges facing companies in an increasingly connected world.

Cyberattacks have increased by 28% in the first quarter of this year and companies already receive an average of 1,380 attacks per week according to an international report by CheckPoint. In Spain more than 60% of Spanish companies suffered cyberattacks during 2023 according to data from INCIBE (Cybersecurity Institute of Spain) and the Agència de Ciberseguretat de Catalunya detected during 2022 more than 4,424 million cyberattacks.

To put a stop to this rise in cybercrime, the European Commission and the European Parliament have passed a package of measures, such as the Cybersecurity Act and the cyber resilience regulation, which provide new safeguards, but also require more measures to be taken by companies and institutions.

“In an environment of geopolitical instability, in the midst of digital transformation and with the boom of artificial intelligence, cyberattacks have become one of the main risks for the industry,” says the Director of the event, Marc Tarragó. He adds, “the increase in connected devices forces companies to constantly update their digital security systems, so we want to provide them with the latest in technological protection, in an environment where the best professionals in the sector will meet and discuss today’s solutions and tomorrow’s challenges.”

Minimizing digital threats
In this sense, the BCC, organized by Fira de Barcelona together with the Agència de Ciberseguretat de Catalunya, has set its themes for this edition around major challenges for companies such as Threat Intelligence and Surveillance, Robust Security Measures, Employee Training and Awareness, Compliance Management Solutions, Data Governance and Privacy, and Technology for Regulation.

The event features 25 companies specialized in the development of solutions to minimize the impact of cybercriminals and digital threats such as Cloudflare, Crowdstrike, Fortinet ManageEngine, Sentinel One, SoSafe, Telefonica Tech or Threatlocker, among others. Zero Trust systems, AI in digital security, quantum computing, remote work protection, multifactor authentication, penetration testing and cloud security are some of the trends in the sector that will be showcased.

In addition, in the congress program and under the technical direction of the International Society of Automation (ISA), more than 60 sessions will be held with speakers such as Andrew Rose, director of security at SoSafe; Daniele Molteni, product manager at Cloudflare; Tom Liston, CEO of Bad Wolf Security; and Steve Mustard, former president of ISA and independent consultant in automation.

In this way, through conferences, talks and round tables, participants will be able to discover the cybercrime trends of 2024, discuss how to combat the new threats posed by Artificial Intelligence, learn how to convey protection guidelines to employees or learn first-hand about success stories from companies and multinationals.

Hacking village
The so-called “ethical hacking” will also have its own space at the Hacking Village, where, in collaboration with partners such as CaixaBank Tech, S21SEC and Recorded Future, developers will put their skills to work and share their knowledge in this field. One of the main attractions of this zone will be the Capture The Flag challenges by Crowdstrike and CaixaBank Tech. Crowdstrike offers a workshop to master the detection, investigation and detention of adversaries using the CrowdStrike Falcon platform. For its part, CaixaBank Tech is organizing a live competition in which participants will have to stop a cyber attack.

Likewise, this area will feature a program of talks and conferences with the participation of several experts such as Mark Rogers, the CTO of nbhd.ai, an American startup focused on the security and integrity of datasets and AI; or the prestigious Spanish cybersecurity consultant, Martín Vigo, among others.

In addition, the Acces 2 Market activity, jointly organized by the Agència de Ciberseguretat de Catalunya, the Spanish National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) and the European Cybersecurity Competence Center (ECCC), will put information security officers (CISOs) in contact with several companies and vendors of products related to cybersecurity infrastructure and safety.

BCC will be held from May 21-23 at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue together with the IOT Solutions World Congress, the international event on industry transformation through disruptive technologies that, with more than 300 companies and 250 experts from around the world, will showcase the latest developments and innovations for the transformation and modernization of the industrial sector. IOTSWC will also focus on semiconductor opportunities and feature conferences, presentations, testbeds and areas for the most innovative startups.