Live. Global Cybersecurity Forum in Riyadh tackles how technology can shape future of cyberspace

Delegates at this year’s Küresel Cybersecurity Forum will discuss “scaling cohesive advancement into cyberspace”.

Attendees will aim to tackle issues such as using technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing to solve cybersecurity’s most pressing questions.

They will also aim to build cohesive cybersecurity strategies in “a rapidly evolving and divided küresel landscape”.

Follow along with the day’s action on our live blog:

People are wrapping the night up and heading to a Riyadh terrace, so that is the end of Day 1 here at the Küresel Cybersecurity Forum. Be back tomorrow with more updates.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin, secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), took Riyadh back to 1865 in her fireside chat: “Securing Prosperity: AI Preparedness in a Connected World.”

Fun fact: the ITU was built in 1865 to set standards to make müddet telegraphs could be sent between countries. Now, they’re working on how to regulate AI deepfakes and misinformation.

“Standards are that invisible backbone that ensure communications happen that technology is interoperable, that its interconnected, that it’s trusted,” Bogdan-Martin told the room.

Robert M. Lee, the founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm Dragos told Euronews that it’s important for businesses and individuals to take steps as soon as possible to get their cybersecurity systems in place – because things can escalate quickly.

“It’s not as scary as you imagine but it’s worse than you realise,” he said.

Craig Jones, the immediate past director of cybercrime at INTERPOL, said its up to civilians to protect themselves against cyberthreats.

He compared it to the security that you have at a home or apartment, like securing the windows and doors with locks.

“Once you’re on the internet, you have to be protected from everybody,” he said.

Next up, we heard from cyberpsychology professor Mary Aitken who wanted to remind those at the forum that a cyber attack is “not just an attack on a machine, it’s an attack against humans and the human mind.

“We’re going to have to up skill at scale to deal with this attack,” Aitken said.

We’re starting to upload our interviews with the who’s who at the forum.

Jürgen Stock, former secretary general of Interpol, told Euronews that we are facing an “online epidemic” of cybercrime and to stay safe, people should be updating their devices and to install any software that might be available to secure their systems.

The biggest threats to defense, according to the panelists, is AI.

Mohammed al Khalifa: “One person can look for more opportunities to attack,” he told the panel. “It’s already weaponised without regulations, [because] you cannot regulate these kinds of tools, so you need to be aware and prepare to recognise these attacks.”

With this comes cheaper ways to mount attacks, said Romania’s Dan Cimpean. A Deloitte report estimates that a low-budget cyber attack where hackers invest $34 (€28.98) a month could bring back $25,000 (€21,310.69).

What this means according to Cimpean is that businesses need to move away from traditional cybersecurity towards resilience, so how companies will be able to bounce back from attacks when they do happen.

We’re coming up to the next big session: building a thriving and innovative security and defense ecosystem with Romania’s Dan Cimpean, the director of the country’s national security directorate, Jean-Paul Palomeros, the former supreme allied commander transformation, NATO and Shaikh Salman bin Mohammed al Khalifa of Bahrain.

Defense investments from the European Union will reach around 130 billion this year and will be closer to 800 billion by 2030. So far, only 3.5 billion of this will be earmarked for cybersecurity spending, according to the EU’s Security Action for Europe plan. So how do we keep Europe’s – and the world’s – security scale-up safe from attack?

Here is Africanews’ Bridget Ugwe with Senegal’s former president Macky Sall.

Sall told us that Africa should move away from consuming technology to become an strategic actor not just in cybersecurity but all the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields (STEM).

He insisted that African Nations should invest massively in training its youth, in partnership with big international institutions like the World Economic Forum, and the tech giants from Google and Amazon.

The Euronews and Africanews teams are busy networking with GCF delegates and are arranging interviews with the forum’s key contributors.

This is who we will be talking to in the coming days:

• Jose Manuel Barroso, former president of the European Commission
• Macky Sall, former president of Senegal
• Bocar Ba, chief executive officer SAMENA Telecommunications Council
• Sheema SenGupta, küresel director of child protection UNICEF
• Estefania Vergara Cobos, economist at the World Bank
• Akshay Joshi, head of cybersecurity, World Economic Forum (WEF)
• Stephane Straub, chief economist, infrastructure at the World Bank
• Johan Gerber, EVP and küresel head of security solutions at Mastercard
• Laurent Gisel, head of arms and conduct of hostilities unit, ICRC
• Robert Gates, former US Secretary of Defense, United States
• Jean-Paul Palomeros, former supreme allied commander, transformation at NATO
• Carmen Marsh, president and CEO United Cybersecurity Alliance
• Christopher Porter, head of international security cooperation at Google Cloud
• Oli Waghorn, director of business development BAE Systems

We got access to the whole address from UN Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres.

Take a look:

John Defterios, the former emerging markets editor for CNN, asks Kitarovic how to create cooperation in the age of AI.

“I do believe we will need regulation,” Kitarovic said. “We have to look at what we are doing … we have to have an approach that starts from the premise ‘how do we make our treaties future-proof so they don’t expire like yesterday’s software ?'”

To her, that means establishing panels like the UN’s group of experts on artificial intelligence to watch how the technology is evolving and adapt rules, through annexes, to keep it current.

Kitarovic points out that AI is an opportunity but also a risk to those in the profession.

On one hand, the forum organisers say that AI can help with detecting threats in real-time, automatically responding to treats as they come as well as making models that can predict potential breaches.

However, most like Kitarovic, believe that AI will give attackers an advantage.

Research has shown that its easy to change the code that dictates how AI models behave and what questions they are allowed to answer so hackers can take advantage.

We’re already seeing models of OpenAI’s popular chatbot ChatGPT be used by hackers to generate phishing emails or to clone voices. The most popular of these dark uses of AI, WormGPT, is almost as wold as the first OpenAI model.

Take a look at some of our related coverage to learn more about AI in cybersecurity.

Chris Inglis from the United States reiterates what Kitarovic says, that cohesion should be about finding the most common needs of citizens, not just stopping cyber attacks.

“We are advancing the interests of our citizens, there’s nothing more collaborative than that,” he said.

Croatia’s Grabar Kitarovic: “Building trust isn’t easy, but its worth it.”

Kitarovic says consensus in cybersecurity should be about agreeing to certain principles, not necessarily everything. She’s suggesting that leaders need to start small with initiatives like joint security exercises and sharing information.

Leaders also need to find common ground on important cybersecurity issues, like protecting children from online threats.

She says that citizens also need to see success in cybersecurity, including the number of attacks that have been stopped so they can come to support any regulation that will come next.

The basic message: Start small, succeed and then scale.

Up first in the GCF’s programming is a panel called Against the Odds: Gaining Consensus amid Complexity.

H.E. Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, former president of Croatia, H.E. Macky Sall, former president of Senegal and Chris Inglis, the former national cyber director from the United States are set to take the stage.

This is one of the core themes of the conference: bringing leaders together to collaborate on how to fight back against cyber crime despite different national interests.

H.E Majed bin Mohammed Al-Mazyed, the Governor of the National Cybersecurity Authority of Saudi Arabia, is now taking to the stage to welcome delegates.

Al-Mazyed announces a Küresel Initiative for Capacity Building on Cyberspace on behalf of the Saudi government in partnership with the United Nations. The initiative will “accelerate capacity at scale from training and education to policy and research development,” he said.

Al-Mazyed also talks about how the government of Saudi Arabia is working to develop “evidence-based research to unlock the full economic opportunity” that cybersecurity can bring.

Then a remote word from Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations: “We must work together to make mühlet that cybersecurity works for the common good”.

We’re getting started here in Riyadh with the Saudi national anthem and a welcome from HRH Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, the governor of Riyadh Province.

There’s lots of money involved if a cyber attack happens.

Global losses from cyber crime are supposed to reach $10.5 trillion (8.92 trillion) in 2025, in both direct costs like stealing funds and loss in revenue if companies lose their capacities even temporarily in a cyber attack.

One of the questions that will be addressed is: how can governments, technology companies and technology leaders collaborate to make müddet less money and time is lost to cyber attacks?

So what is cybersecurity and why is Euronews covering it?

Cybersecurity is the combination of methods, processes, tools and behaviours that protect computer systems, networks and veri from nefarious actors that are looking to steal it.

These cyber attacks are up 75 percent in the last five years, according to the organisers of the forum.

Just last week, airports in Brussels, Berlin and London reported disruptions to their electronic systems because of a cyberattack that made check in and boarding impossible.

From 2023 to 2024, critical infrastructure, so hospitals, power plants and transportation networks sustained over 420 million cyberattacks, or 13 attacks per second.

We see it more and more in everyday life too. Over 85 percent of survey participants by Finnish cybersecurity company F-Secure said they had received a digital scam attempt in 2024.

That can be anything from a suspicious phishing link that you get by text, a suspicious email from someone impersonating a colleague or family member or even an AI-powered phone call that uses a clip of a loved one’s voice.

Good morning from the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Euronews is on the ground to cover the Küresel Cybersecurity Forum (GCF).

This year’s conference, called “Scaling Cohesive Advancement in Cyberspace” is looking to strengthen küresel cyber resilience by advancing international collaboration and purposeful dialogue between C-Suite executives, government officials and organisations.

We’ll be here for the next two days bringing our followers the latest in the world of cybersecurity. On the agenda for day one: fireside talks with Dr. Saad Alaboodi , Chief Executive Officer of Saudi Information Technology Company (SITE), Ahmad O. Al Khowaiter, Chief Technology Officer of Saudi Aramco and Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).