Information security and risk management professionals from across the NREN community recently gathered in Rome, with GARR hosting the latest Special Interest Group on Information Security Management (SIG-ISM) meeting. It provided participants with a valuable face-to-face opportunity to talk openly about ongoing challenges and how to tackle an increasingly complex security and compliance landscape.
The agenda included NIS2 implementation, compliance requirements, crisis management, and the Security Policy Alliance initiative. Attendees shared their opinions on common challenges such as security monitoring, supply chain risks, cloud services, digital sovereignty, and emerging legislative requirements. Several NRENs shared recent experiences of cyber incidents and highlighted the importance of collaboration and preparedness.
Crisis management featured as a dedicated session, focusing on lessons learned from large-scale disruption scenarios and the need for realistic exercises that support both ISO and NIS2 requirements. The group also discussed ways to strengthen trust and cooperation between organisations, including proposals for peer support and knowledge-sharing frameworks.
The meeting wrapped up with a presentation on AI and what it means for the security community, which generated significant interest in further collaboration and future.
The event showed the real value of the SIG-ISM community, giving participants a space to support one another and build collective resilience across research and education.
“I found the SIG-ISM very interesting, particularly because of the range of relevant information security topics discussed. I especially appreciated the conversation about SURF’s work with cloud vendors, which gave me several useful new perspectives and a much better understanding of their approach in this area.
It was also valuable to see that many of us are working with the same subjects, such as AI and risk management, while still exploring the best solutions and approaches. This led to some very fruitful discussions about how others are addressing these challenges and shaping these areas within their organisations, which I appreciated very much.”
Lars Henrik Fly Steensen
Legal & Data Protection Advisor
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