H.E. Mr Alexandru Petrescu, Minister, Ministry of Communications and Information Society
Alexandru Petrescu is the Minister for Communications and Information Society in the Government of Romania, having served previously as Minister for the Economy and Minister for the Business Environment, Trade and Entrepreneurship. Driven by the passion for economy and management performance, Alexandru Petrescu forged a successful career where he went from a young graduate of economic studies on the financial-banking market of the United Kingdom to being vice-president of a British Bank and, upon returning to Romania in 2012, the Executive Director and CEO of The Romanian Postal Administration and member of its Board alongside being President of the Board of another large state owned company – The Travelers’ Railways. After serving the two Minister mandates, he was appointed to hold the position of CEO of the largest guarantee fund for SMEs in Romania, created to support the business environment and the implementation of Government programs in this respect, position which yielded significant results within the span of just 1 ½ year of mandate. His achievements in promoting financial services also were recognized by being appointed as a Board Member of Eurogiro and the European Association of Guarantee Funds – AECM. The activity in the Romanian business environment (2012-2018) in strategic Romanian companies (Travelers Railways Company, The Romanian Postal Administration, The National Guarantee Fund for SMEs ), where he acted with notable economic results, have brought him the recognition from the business environment by being granted leadership awards (“Best CEO for Turnaround Performance”; “Successful Leader”) and also gave him the opportunity of promoting best practices of corporate governance both inside the companies as well as within the consultative bodies such as the “Romanian Association for Good Administration”. A professional with vision and drive for success attained with integrity and hard work, Alexandru Petrescu is always open to new ideas, innovative solutions and firm management towards achieving the goals, alongside teams of professionals that share the same sets of values. From the position of Minister for Communications and Information Society, Alexandru Petrescu comes forth as a supporter of the implementation of the Digital Agenda and of private and public investment in the electronic and postal communications markets, alongside a continuous process to modernize the relevant regulatory environment.
Mr Ionut Andrei, State Secretary, Ministry of Communications and Information Society, on behalf of Romanian Presidency in the Council of European Union, EU
Mr Catalin Arama, General Dierctor CERT-RO, Romania
Cătălin Aramă is the General Director of the Romanian National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-RO). With over 15 years of experience in the IT industry, he has held leading positions both in the public and private sectors. He was chairman of the “Dunărea de Jos” IT Cluster and manager of the first Software Park in Romania, as well as president of the National Digital Romania Center, an institution under the coordination of the Ministry of Communications and Information Society. Mr. Aramă is a PhD candidate at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza Police Academy, Graduate School of Public Order and National Security, and holds an MA Degree in European Law and Public Administration Studies.
Mr Aleksandar Acev, Head of MKD-CIRT, North Macedonia
Ms Daniela Androvic, Advisor for ICT Systems Security, SRB-CERT, Serbia
Mr Ioannis Askoxylakis, Cybersecurity Policy Officer, European Commission
Dr. Ioannis G. Askoxylakis is Cybersecurity Policy Officer at the Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology of European Commission since 2018. Before joining the European Commission he has been Senior Researcher & Head of FORTHcert, the Computer Emergency Response Team of FORTH (2002-2018), member of the Plenary of the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (2016-2018) and Professor of Cybersecurity and Internet of Things at Bournemouth University (2015-2018). In the past he has served as national representative in the Future Internet Forum of EU member and Associated States of DG CONNECT (2009-2013), as member of the Permanent Stakeholders Group of the European Network and Information Security Agency- ENISA (2009-2012) and as member the technical advisory committee of the Hellenic Ministry of Administrative Reform and e-governance (2011-2014). He is the editor of 8 books and the author of more than 50 publications in international journals and conference proceedings in the domain of cybersecurity. He has organized and chaired several prestigious international cybersecurity conferences and workshops and he has coordinated and participated in more than 20 European funded R&D projects. He holds a Diploma in Physics from the University of Crete, a Master of Science in Communication Engineering from the Technical University of Munich and a PhD in Secure and Resilient Communications for Emergency Response from the University of Bristol.
Ms Paula Avasiloaiei, President of Electronic Students League, Romania
Paula is a student at The Faculty of Electronics, Telecomunications and Information Technology, full of initiative and looking forward to new challenges, Paula is ready to action. The combination of leadership and technology, she likes strategies and looking for solutions to real issues.
Mr Evgenios Bardis, Team leader, CSIRT-CY, Cyprus
Mr Marwan Ben Rached, ITU
Mr Marwan Ben Rached is a technical Officer - Cybersecurity at ITU (International Telecommunication Union ) and has more than 12 years’ experience in Cyber Security. Marwan has provided information security consulting services and has managed cybersecurity projects for the governments and the private sector and also he has been involved into the regional cybersecurity assistance, by helping different developing countries to enhance their cybersecurity capabilities. Marwan received a Master and Engineer degrees in Computer Science from the University of Sousse and also he holds various IT Certifications such as CISSP ,ISO 27001 LEAD AUDITOR, CEA, ECSP, CEH, CSAD, CLA, LPI, and CCNA.
Mr Francesco Binaschi, Cybersecurity Consultant, Deloitte
Francesco is part of Deloitte CERT Centre of Excellence, which support governments and critical infrastructures in CERT/CSIRT/SOCs design and implementation projects, and in defining strategies to enhance traditional Threat Intelligence, Incident Management and Information Sharing capabilities. He has also significant experience in Cyber Wargaming projects for Energy, Financial and Telco Critical Infrastructures and for International Organizations.
Mr Alexandru Catalin Cosoi, Chief Security Strategist, Bitdefender
As Bitdefender's Chief Security Strategist, Alexandru Catalin Cosoi wears many hats, from energizing and publicizing the company's technological progress from within the CTO Office to leading the cyber-intelligence team tasked with helping local and international law enforcement agencies fight cybercrime. Alexandru is also a member of the Internet Security Advisory Group at Europol and Bitdefender’s liaison with Interpol, and he is in direct contact with 60 CERTs worldwide. Alexandru specializes in pattern extraction and recognition technologies, with an accent on neural networks and machine learning. His technical achievements have so far materialized in six granted patents and a series of classification technologies being implemented in Bitdefender software. Alexandru has a bachelor degree in bioengineering and machine learning and a PhD in natural language processing. Throughout the past decade, Alexandru has been delivering talks and trainings to numerous international events, evangelizing the threat landscape of the cybersecurity industry, dissecting attacks and training people to use different technologies.
Mr Mihnea Costoiu, Rector of University Politehnica of Bucharest
Mr. COSTOIU graduated in Economic Engineering at the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest. He held several political positions between 2001 to 2014 including Secretary General of the Romanian National Ministry of Education, State Secretary of the Romanian National Ministry of Education and Minister Delegate for Higher-Education and Research. He is currently Rector of the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, General Secretary of the Romanian National Council of Rectors and Senator in the Romanian Parliament. He is also director in the CESAER’s board and member of the AUF Administrative and Associative Councils.
Mr Uttang Dawda, Cybersecurity consultant, FIRST
Uttang Dawda is a leading Threat Intelligence Researcher and Trainer who specializes in identifying cyber threats and reverse engineering malicious software. Uttang is known for his Malware Reverse Engineering and Threat Intelligence trainings across the world. He has also created Decryptolocker - an anti-ransomware tool, saving hundreds of thousands of victims, including the FBI and Law Enforcement Agencies globally, from losing their data to ransomware attacks. His tool disrupted millions of dollars of ransom transactions to criminals.
Dr Almerindo Graziano, CEO, Silensec
Almerindo Graziano is the CEO of Silensec. He holds an MSc in Electronic Engineering and a PhD in mobile computer security, both from the University of Naples, Italy. For five years he was also the founder and course Leader for the MSc in Information Systems Security at Sheffield Hallam University, in collaboration with the British Standard Institution (BSI). He has personally authored a number of training courses from ethical hacking to intrusion detection, along with the first ever ISO27001 Lead Implementer certification course offered by the British Standards Institution worldwide. His areas of expertise include standards compliance (e.g. ISO27001, ISO22301, PCI DSS), IT infrastructure protection, design of SIEM and Log Management systems and development of cyber threat intelligence capabilities. He has consulted in formation security for private and government organizations across Europe, Africa and Middle East. He works as a cyber security expert for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) regularly delivering cyberdrills exercises and workshops for national CERTs and governments around the world. He is also the co-chair of the European Cyber Security Organization (ECSO) sub working group on Cyber Range environments and technical exercises and sub working group on Awareness.
Mr Adrian-Ioan Ifrim
With more than twelve years of experience in the financial, telecom and IT security sector, Adrian is currently serving as manager for the Deloitte Romania Cyber Risk Services team. After obtaining a bachelor degree as Engineer in Automatics and Computer Science, he continued his studies and obtained a Master’s Degree in Information Security over Complex Networks.
He specialized in information security with focus on penetration testing services and currently holds the Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP), Offensive Security Certified Expert (OSCE) and System Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) certifications.
Adrian managed and has been involved in various projects in relation to internal, external penetration testing, penetration testing on cloud supported services, social engineering testing and vulnerability assessments for various companies and financial institutions in Romania and Germany. Adrian has also experience in Information Risk Management and IT Audit in Financial sector where he handled and aided in the implementation and improvement internal processes in relation to identification of IT risks and assessment of controls.
In 2015, he participated in the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge with project DESCARTES (Distributed Expert Systems for Cyber Analysis, Reasoning, Testing, Evaluation, and Security). In 2015 and 2017 he was invited as speaker at OWASP EEE Bucharest Event.
Mr Rastislav Janota, Director, SK-CERT, Slovak Republic
Mr. Rastislav Janota has over 20 years of experience in IT and telecommunication sectors.
Over his career, Mr. Janota holds successfully various expert, managerial, and supervision positions in the field of information and communication services and information/cyber security in private and governmental sector both at home and abroad. Following his successful leadership at Slovak governmental institution - National Agency for Network and Electronic Services (NASES) in which he was also named as the Chairman of the Cyber Security Committee of the Security Council of the Slovak republic, Mr. Janota has joined Slovak National Security Authority on July 1, 2016 where he serves also as Chairman of Cyber Security Committee of the director of National Security Authority Slovakia. From these positions, he bears responsibility for cyber security governance of the Slovak Republic.
Ms Franziska Klopfer, Project Coordinator, DCAF
Franziska has been engaged in institutional reform in the security sector, with a specific focus on cybersecurity at the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF) since 2011. Previously, she had worked for over seven years for intergovernmental committees and working groups on Internet governance at the Council of Europe and the United Nations. In her work at DCAF, Franziska implements reform and capacity building projects and leads research. She has specific expertise on Internet governance, human rights and public policy, cybersecurity and the privatisation of security. Franziska holds an MA in Human Rights from University College London and an LLM in Public International Law from Queen Mary University of London.
Ms Jelena Manasijevic, SRB-SERT, Serbia
Jelena Manasijevic is a Senior Advisor for ICT Systems Security at the National CERT in the Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services - RATEL Serbia. Jelena has involved into projects which raising capacity and enhanced cyber security capabilities of Serbian National CERT team in the last two years. She has seven years experience in the IT, Network engineer. Jelena has a Master Engeneer degree of Telecommunications from the Electrical University of Belgrade.
Mr George Michaelides, Chairman of OCECPR, Cyprus
George has more than 20 years of experience in ICT. He holds a B.Eng in Computer Engineering and an MSc in Communications Systems. For more than 14 years he has been working for multinational organizations holding various regional senior ICT roles, accountable for the provision of impeccable service through, reorganizations, outsourcing and the implementation/adoption of IT Best Practices. Currently is leading the Cyprus national regulatory authority (OCECPR) for Electronic Communications and Postal Services as well as the regulatory authority for Network and Information Security (NIS) for Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs). In addition he has been tasked to setup and operate the National CSIRT. Hıs office is also the coordinating body for the implementation of Cyprus Cybersecurity Strategy. As part of his regulatory duties he is a Board member of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), the European Mediterranean Regulators Group (EMERG) and the European Regulators Group for Postal Services (ERGP).
Mr Ioan Cosmin Mihai, Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Researcher, Romanian Association for Information Security Assurance ARASEC
Ioan-Cosmin MIHAI is a cybersecurity and cybercrime researcher, professor, trainer and conference speaker. He is Associate Professor at “Al. I. Cuza” Police Academy, the University Politehnica of Bucharest, “Carol I” National Defence University, Romania, and Honorary Professor at the CT University, India, where he is teaching disciplines related to information technology, cybersecurity and cybercrime.
Mr Ragnar Oun, Head of CIIP Department, Estonia Information System Authority, RIA
Ragnar work for Estonian Information System Authority since December 2016. The Informationi System Authority (https://www.ria.ee/en.html) coordinates the development and administration of information systems ensuring the interoperability of the state’s information system, organises activites related to information security, adn handles security incidents in Estonian computer networks. Critical Information Infrastructure Protection department organises protection on a national level for the public and private sector information systems that are essential for the functioning of the Estonian state. Also department ensures readiness for resolving crises caused by cyber incidents by developing and implementing preparedness procedures for internal as well as international use and organising national and international crisis and cyber exercises in cooperation with partner institutions and companies. During his more than 20 years of proffesional experiences in IT, Ragnar has also worked as a leading investigator for cybercrimes and digital evidences in the Estonian Police and Border Guard.
Mr Catalin Patrascu, Security Program Manager, Secureworks
Catalin is an experienced cyber security expert with more than 10 years of a demonstrated history in the information security field. He started his cyber security journey in the Romanian Ministry of Defense, continued as a coordinator of the incident handling team at the Romanian National CSIRT – CERT-RO (2012-2018), and is currently activating as a Security Program Manager for at Secureworks. He successfully managed cyber security related projects, planned and moderated cyber exercises, handled security incidents at national scale, and conducted various studies on cyber security and cyber crime topics.
Mr Jaroslaw Ponder, Head of the ITU Office for Europe, ITU
Mr Ponder is Head of the ITU Office for Europe at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (Geneva, Switzerland). Within the last years Mr. Ponder has been carrying out numerous projects, activities and initiatives at national, regional and international levels. He has been taking lead role in many international conferences and summits dealing with fostering ICT innovation and development of ICT ecosystem, information society, and advancements of digital economy worldwide, while setting strategies and ensuring their timely implementation. Along the professional career Mr. Ponder held official positions in the public sector and was a contributor to the legislative projects having impact on the public policy. Since 2014 Mr. Ponder has been working for ITU, in Market, Economics and Finance Unit (MEF/ITU), Strategy and Policy Unit (SPU/ITU), Project and Initiatives Department (PRI/ITU). From year 2008 upon his former duties he has acted as Europe Officer (EUR/ITU) as well as Project Manager for European Centres of Excellence Network (CoE-EUR). In August 2008 he was appointed as Coordinator for Europe. After successful recreation of the coordination for the region in 2009 he moved to the General Secretariat becoming Strategy and Policy Coordinator and one year later Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor with the objective to lead the ITU activities on World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS; United Nation Process on ICTs) and its 10 year review, amongst the others successfully establishing prime platforms, i.e. WSIS Forum, WSIS Prizes, WSIS Stocktaking, and organizing WSIS+10 High Level Event (2014) that resulted in negotiated texts. In parallel, since 2011 he has been working as Coordinator for Europe strengthening coordination and implementation mechanism. In 2017 he became the Head of ITU Office for Europe, directing actions, projects, initiatives, experts groups targeting 46 countries and representing ITU in Europe.
Gen. Anton Rog, Director, Cyberint Center of the Romanian Intelligence Services, SRI
Mr. Anton ROG is the Head of National Cyberint Center (CNC) within the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). CNC is responsible for conducting 24/7 activities to discover, characterize and proactively counter cyber threats against systems and networks critical to Romania national security. Anton has held various technical development positions including software and systems design. He has also served as a Deputy Director within SRI IT&C central department. He is active with the academic community as associated professor at DRESMARA Brasov. Anton graduated from the University of Bucharest in 1998 with a B.S. in information technology, and he received a Postgraduate degree in program and project management in 2011 from DRESMARA. He was awarded Knight of the Order Manhood and Faith in 2014 and Knight of the Order of Military Virtue in 2005 by two Presidents of Romania.
Ms Sorina Teleanu, Chair of the Executive Committee of the South Eastern European Dialogue on Internet Governance, SEEDIG
Sorina Teleanu currently serves as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the South Eastern European Dialogue on Internet Governance (SEEDIG), a sub-regional initiative launched in 2015. She is also a member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) which provides advice to the UN Secretary-General on the programme and schedule of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meetings. She previously worked with DiploFoundation as Digital Policy Senior Researcher, and with the Romanian Parliament, as advisor dealing with ICT-related legislation and policies. Between 2011 and 2016, Sorina served as the alternate representative of the Romanian Government to ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee. She has been a long-time volunteer to the IGF Secretariat and EuroDIG, and also worked as a fellow and consultant at the IGF Secretariat. Sorina is an alumna of DiploFoundation’s Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme, ICANN’s Fellowship Programme, the Internet Society’s Next Generation Leadership programme, and the European Summer School on Internet Governance. Her educational background is in international relations and European studies, having received a bachelor and a master's degree from the Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu, Romania.
Mr Madalin Vasile, Manager Systems Engineering, Fortinet
Madalin Vasile is a network and security specialist with more than 15 years of relevant experience. He joined Fortinet in 2011 as a Presales Systems Engineer and is supporting Romania, Balkans and Adriatic region. As part of the Fortinet team, Madalin designed and influenced security solutions for Datacenter, ISP, webhosting and complex networks covering different technologies like Next Generation Firewall, UTM, VPN, anti-DDoS, web application firewall, authentication and more.
Mr Csaba Virag, European Cyber Security Organization, ECSO
Csaba Virág has more than a decade of experience in strategic, technical and administrative layers of the IT sector and information security as an ethical hacker, cyber security professional and private sector subject matter expert. Up to the summer of 2015 Csaba was leading several technical developments, mainly focusing on critical infrastructures like transportation, healthcare and the telecommunication sector. Besides delivering state-of-the-art technical and security solutions Csaba has won several prices for delivering creative and high impact user experience products and services. As Head of Cyber Security Competence Centre at Cyber Services he is responsible for knowledge transfer solutions and course developments along with delivering capacity building activities himself. Csaba is active in international capacity and capability building projects mainly focused on EU and Middle-East. Csaba is the lead national expert and creator of Cyber Kids concept in Hungary, focusing on situational cyber awareness programs for children. Csaba has been actively participating and delivering ITU regional cyber drills since 2015 around the globe. Csaba is actively engaged in the European Cyber Security Organisation as Cyber Services is chairing the working group for Education, Awareness, Training and Exercises delivering capacity building concepts and solutions. Besides his successful private business activities Csaba is a regular speaker at various cyber security events and conferences in Europe and around the world. For more information, please visit Csaba Virág’s linkedIn profile at
https://www.linkedin.com/in/csabavirag/
