The ECA had so many exciting exchanges in FIC 2022!

First, our team was impressed by so many exhibitors, and by so many new challenges. Difficult to quote them all. Just a sample:

• The Swiss Pavilion, with the thrilling creativity of the present companies and the quality of their forum
• The crowds on the booths of such ECA members as Tehtris, EclecticIQ, Sekoia, Egerie, Atempo, EBRC, VADE … and, in fact, everywhere around!
• The renewal of NAC Network Access Control, epitomized by our new German member ISL whose delegates were attending FIC for the first time
• The presence of many experts, CISOs, investors, institutions …

This FIC was also the occasion to shed light on some questions:

• The bright ideas about Cybersecurity implemented by design in communication satellites, for instance, the discussion between Campus Cyber and our Swiss member CYSEC as they are extending presence to France. As satellite business partly moves to constellations of small units, fully loaded with software, the entry barrier which used to be so high declines and lets newcomers start up’s in. At the same time, funding issues that used to be so critical in this very capitalistic domain, start changing for the better.
• The growing concern about industrial systems protection against Cyber-attacks. Her ewe would like to mention the recent move by Framatome, a nuclear engineering company, which is developing a business in OT Cybersecurity. Among others, they have just acquired Cyberwatch, a company that took part last year in the ECA ‘s campaign to promote European Cyber offerings. Framatome is on its way to offering Cybersecurity solutions to critical industries, we were pleased to discuss the issue with them.
• eID: this issue is both at the heart of some countries’ developments and of Cybersecurity itself as you have to define who is entitled to access what parts of the Information system. This is also a question the ECA is accurately following, as some of our members are here at the front edge.

Last but not the least, the FIC was a good occasion to meet some more stakeholders. Let’s quote:

• Our meeting with DOCAPOSTE, which masters some key elements of eID and secure storage, thus contributing to solid ground for sovereign solutions.
• Our meeting with the representative of BSI (German Federal Office for Information Security), at a time when it’s so important to converge the rules and certification systems across Europe. BSI is also actively engaged in popularizing some soon-to-come regulations, such as the future EU Cyber-resilience Act.
• Campus Cyber: as we had a manager of them in our workshop, it was very interesting to visit some of their specificities. Among others, their governance which aims at putting on par level very different sorts of players – and the « Commons »: an initiative for cyber actors to make together what they cannot build alone – finally the application domains such as mobility or health where they want to help emerging Cyber specific solutions. In this regard, maybe cyber by design applied to satellite communication, evoked in our workshop, could become another hot topic?

Written by: Dominique Tessier / dominique.tessier@european-champions.org