Events

2023 FIRST & AfricaCERT Symposium: Africa and Arab Regions

The 2023 Cyber Stability Conference (CS23)

Nearly a decade ago, States agreed that international law is applicable and essential for a secure, stable, peaceful information and communications technology (ICT) environment. The remaining question is how international law applies to the use of ICTs by States.

To facilitate focused future deliberations and therefore meaningfully contribute to the advancement of multilateral negotiations, CS23 will focus on the first source of international law that States agreed on as being applicable in cyberspace – the Charter of the United Nations (UN). Specifically, CS23 will investigate the rights and obligations of the UN Charter applicable to cyberspace, including legal principles and thresholds related to the topics such as the use of armed force; armed attack and self-defence; role and powers of the UN Security Council; and peaceful settlement of disputes.

In addition to providing a platform for the exchange of views among national experts, CS23 will also feature introductory briefings from reputable scholars, adding clarity on key concepts and supporting meaningful participation of all States in the relevant multilateral discussions.

Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (APRICOT)

Representing Asia Pacific's largest international Internet conference, Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (APRICOT) draws many of the world's best Internet engineers, operators, researchers, service providers, users and policy communities from over 50 countries to teach, present, and do their own human networking.

The ten-day summit consists of seminars, workshops, tutorials, conference sessions, birds-of-a-feather (BOFs), and other forums with the goal of spreading and sharing the knowledge required to operate the Internet within the Asia Pacific region.

APRICOT is a valuable opportunity for participants and sponsors to hear and contribute to discussions concerning current and developing Internet networking technologies and trends.

International Summit on Youth and Cybercrime

The Summit will provide a platform for researchers from the European Commission funded CC-DRIVER and RAYUELA projects to present their results and main findings focusing on the implications for policy and practice. The Summit is intended to be a discussion forum, where high-level experts in the field will share their research, best practices and lessons learned, adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, to better tackle cybercriminality, with a special focus on young people. The audience will comprise policymakers, law enforcement authorities, research, industry and academia, education and other experts in the field of cybercrime and cybersecurity.

Speakers will engage in a range of presentations, panel discussions and lightning talks. The Summit will be organised in a hybrid format and simultaneous interpretation will be provided in English and Spanish at the event.

Assessing Cyber Skills on the basis of the ECSF

In September 2022, ENISA introduced the European Cybersecurity Skills Framework, a tool which summarises cybersecurity-related roles into 12 profiles, analysed into their corresponding responsibilities, skills and knowledge. At the same time, the European Commission declared 2023 as the European Year of Skills and announced the establishment of the Cybersecurity Skills Academy.

Numerous renounced institutions, with long experience in the field, are also thrown in the battle of reskilling and upskilling professionals, in order to help increase the cybersecurity workforce, and are introducing schemes that assess cybersecurity competences, especially for organisations in critical sectors. However, some questions still remain: will the assessment of skills actually help employability and professionalization? Do professional certifications and accreditation by training institutions help to ensure a high common level of cybersecurity? Will mutual recognition of professional certificates enhance professional development and still ensure high quality standards? Which will be role of the Member States’ public bodies in the coordination of this landscape?

In an attempt to address these questions, this webinar will tackle approaches to the certification of cybersecurity skills and how they can be aligned with the ECSF.

International Conference on Xenophobia and Racism committed through computer systems

The Council of Europe, through its Cybercrime Programme Office (C-PROC), with support from the Octopus Project and in cooperation with the Icelandic Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, is organising an international conference on xenophobia and racism committed via computer systems.

The event will take place between 30-31 January 2023 in Strasbourg, France, where experts from public and private sectors as well as international and non-governmental organisations from different regions of the world will gather.

The international conference is organised within the framework of the 20th anniversary of the First Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime, that was opened for signature on 28 January 2003 in order to address this type of offences.

ENISA Cybersecurity Policy Conference

The first ENISA Cybersecurity Policy Conference will bring together policymakers, industry representatives and key stakeholders to discuss implementation of cybersecurity policy and challenges ahead. The conference is organised in collaboration with the European Commission (DG CNECT).

The conference will address the following topics:

Development and implementation challenges of EU cybersecurity policy:
- Key cybersecurity policy files: NIS2 Directive and Cyber-resilience Act
- Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure programmes
- Sectorial policy files and cybersecurity implications
- Foresight dimension of cybersecurity policy

Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes – Fourth Session

In accordance with General Assembly resolution 75/282 and the road map and mode of work approved at its first session, the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes, established by the General Assembly in its resolution 74/247, will hold its fourth session from 9- 20 January 2023 in Vienna.

The session will be held in the six official languages of the United Nations in a hybrid format with both in-person and online components.

Two daily meetings of 3-hours each will take place on the understanding that the online interventions using a remote interpretation platform do not exceed thirty minutes per meeting, in accordance with the policy to mitigate the adverse auditory health impact on (simultaneous) interpreters. In the unlikely event that online interventions last longer than thirty minutes in a given meeting, the duration of the meeting would revert back to the standard hybrid duration of two hours.

Delegations may choose to participate in the formal meetings in person, through Interprefy with remote simultaneous interpretation, or by both means.

The meetings of the fourth session will be held from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Vienna local time.

The in-person meeting will be held in the Plenary Hall, on the first floor of the M-Building at the VIC, which has the capacity to accommodate two delegates for Member States, Holy See, Palestine and the European Union and one delegate per multi-stakeholder organization.

Cyberspace Governance at the United Nations

With a dual focus on cyber capacity building and international law, this event considers how these two elements interact and intersect, how discussions on them could progress in the UN space and outside it and how the two contribute to a safer and more secure cyberspace for all.

The event will explore how member states can achieve lasting, adaptable, and meaningful success in cyberspace governance at the United Nations whilst overcoming challenges for operationalization efforts, including differences in national capacities and capabilities, and divergences in national perspectives regarding the application of international law to cyberspace.

Gender mainstreaming the proposed cybercrime convention: Commentary on the consolidated draft

Since the first session of the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes (AHC), member states have made notable progress on incorporating gender and gender equality. Member states have moved from several general initial commitments to women’s participation in treaty negotiations to some states providing more nuanced considerations of gendered dimensions of cybercrime and the importance of gender mainstreaming.

However, while some member states have made considerable progress on advocating for gender considerations in the convention, more remains to be done, especially with regards to: ensuring gender equality pertains to the entire convention; recognizing the rights of people of diverse gender identities, expressions and sexualities; and recognizing the essentiality of the right to privacy to gender and sexual equality.

Held under the fourth negotiation of the AHC, this meeting will bring together policymakers and civil society to discuss the gendered impacts (implicit and explicit) of the current negotiating document.