Amidst a global pandemic, public and private organizations around the globe have witnessed a sharp rise in online scams such as COVID-19 phishing emails. The SolarWinds hack underlined the importance of increasing cybersecurity efforts across all sectors. Collaboration and knowledge exchange are key pathways for the industry and other organizations to share best practices and collectively raise resilience against a growing and complex threat landscape.

Over the course of two weeks filled with working sessions and discussion rounds, Charter of Trust Partners met in taskforces each dedicated to one of the 10 Principles. The Principle Taskforces active during this Collaboration Week were Principle 2 “Responsibility throughout the digital supply chain”, Principle 3 “Security by default”, Principle 6 “Education”, Principle 7 “Certification for critical infrastructure and solutions”, and Principle 8 “Transparency and response”. The Principle Taskforces took stock of the work done since the previous Collaboration Week in June 2020 and set concrete objectives for the coming months leading toward the 2021 Munich Security Conference.

The Charter of Trust also convened its Associated Partner Forum (APF) to discuss ongoing developments and cooperation initiatives with its Associated Partners. The APF this time was joined by Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, the Hasso Plattner Institute, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and TU Graz.

In addition, keynote speeches from an impressive array of high-level experts in the field of cybersecurity were highlights of the Collaboration Week that sparked discussions within the taskforces on the various challenges and opportunities the industry is currently facing. The Charter of Trust was pleased and honoured to host:

• Scott Jones, Head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security
• Atsushi Umino, Director, Office of the Director-General for Cybersecurity, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) of Japan
• Jakub Boratyński, Head of Unit for Cybersecurity and Digital Privacy, DG CNECT, European Commission
• Regine Grienberger, German Ambassador for Cyber Foreign Policy, German Federal Foreign Office
• Kiersten E. Todt, Managing Director of the Cyber Readiness Institute
• Raphael Yahalom, Research Affiliate, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Alexandre Dulaunoy and Andras Iklody, Computer Incident Response Center Luxembourg (CIRCL)
• Patrick Steinmetz, Cyber Risk Assessment Expert at BitSight Technologies
• Dmitry Raidman and Evgeniy Kharam, Co-Founders of the Security Architecture Podcast

The second virtual Collaboration Week of the Charter of Trust enabled an even closer collaboration among partners and exchanges with high-level external speakers through different sectors and time zones. After the success of Charter of Trust roadshows and webinars in 2020, additional online events are being planned to further advance the synergetic nature of the initiative, starting with the Brussels Roadshow on 25 February.