Global Cyber Experts Address the Future of Cyber Conflicts at CyCon 2026

The 18th International Conference on Cyber Conflicts, CyCon 2026: Securing Tomorrow, opened today in Tallinn, bringing together nearly 800 participants from 50 countries to discuss how governments, industry leaders, legal experts, and technologists can work together to adapt to emerging threats in the cyber domain.

Tõnis Saar, Director of NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), noted that recent events demand urgent attention: "Cyberspace is the connective tissue enabling and affecting military and non-military instruments of power. Recent events have showcased practical examples that should be heeded as a wake-up call for all actors to recalibrate their cyber risk and exposure. This makes the theme of this year's conference, Securing Tomorrow, ever more pertinent."

The opening keynote was delivered by Jean-Charles Ellermann-Kingombe, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Cyber Defence and Digital Transformation, who highlighted that artificial intelligence is changing the fundamentals of cyber defence and called for ramping up cooperation with industry.

„We need to stop thinking of AI purely as a threat to manage and start treating it as a force multiplier to leverage. In the short term, the adversary may have an advantage. But by bringing our expertise together, learning from each other, and rapidly putting ideas into practice, we can close the gap and regain the initiative,“ said Ellermann-Kingombe. „For that, the traditional walls separating NATO, Allied governments, and private commercial companies must shrink. To survive the AI-enabled threats, our efforts must converge.“

The four-day multidisciplinary conference features more than 100 speakers. Representing both the CCDCOE host nation and the broader Alliance, two NATO heads of state delivered presidential addresses on collective security, resilience, and the evolving role of cyber defence in an increasingly contested strategic environment - Alar Karis, President of the Republic of Estonia and Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic. Keynote speakers include Katherine E. Sutton (Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy and Principal Cyber Advisor to the Secretary of War), Major General Oleksandr Potii (Chairman, State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine), Hanno Pevkur (Minister of Defence of Estonia), among other leading voices from government, military, industry and academia.

The Conference Proceedings contain 21 peer-reviewed papers chosen from 200 submitted abstracts and are available on CCDCOE’s website: https://ccdcoe.org/library/publications/18th-international-conference-on-cyber-conflict-securing-tomorrow/

The conference is supported by industry partners TrendAI, Palo Alto Networks, Siemens, CrowdStrike, Microsoft, Cloudflare, CybExer, Antisyphon Training, Silent Push, Silobreaker, HWG Sababa, GreyNoise Intelligence, VMRay, Nortal and IEEE.

More detailed information about the conference can be found at https://cycon.org/

The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) is the leading dedicated hub for NATO Allies and like-minded nations to jointly raise their cyber defence capabilities. Based in Tallinn, Estonia, the Centre brings together 39 nations and conducts research, training, and exercises, including Locked Shields and Crossed Swords.