Online via ZOOM platform

·        Your Excellency Deputy Prime Minister Besnik TAHIRI

·        Your Excellency Ambassador Jens Erik GRØNDAHL

·        Mr. Zafir Berisha, National Coordinator for Cyber Security, and Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs

Dear Ambassadors, Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of UNDP in Kosovo, I am pleased to welcome you all to this international Conference on Cybersecurity Threats Landscape, New Trends and Modes of Cooperation.

This conference is organized in support of Kosovo’s efforts to enhance cybersecurity and ensure security of the society. The conference is within the framework of UNDP’s Kosovo Safety and Security Programme – as part of “Combatting Cyber Crime in Kosovo” project, which is generously supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Prishtina.

I would sincerely like to thank the Ministry of Internal Affairs for their contribution and cooperation in the design and organization of the conference.

We appreciate the great interest in this event, both from domestic and from international stakeholders. We remain fully committed to engaging and cooperating with all parties in the rapidly changing landscape. We hope that the next two days of this conference will offer great insights and will spark useful conversations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven governments to explore new opportunities offered by digitalization and technology - to be able to respond to the needs and demands of the public.  Across the Europe and Central Asia region, UNDP has seen a significant increase in governments’ requests to support them in formulating digital strategies and pursuing digital transformation - particularly with regard to public service delivery, business continuity,  digital data, connectivity, and tech tools such as robotics, artificial intelligence, SMART solutions, and more.

These are excellent opportunities to advance public sector approaches towards the 21st century.  However, they all come with associated risks - not only with regard to data privacy and ethics - but also with regard to how individuals and organizations could exploit digital tools for their own criminal gains.

This cybersecurity conference is therefore part of a collaborative effort by UNDP to contribute and to assist our partners to deepen insights on innovation and cybersecurity. As we have seen in the last few years, cyber-instruments have very quickly gained the status of new “weapons” in the field of digital warfare. They are non-classical weapons for sure, yet very effective and capable of generating not only destruction but also large-scale chaos.

We are seeing both the likelihood and impact of cyber-attacks increasing and cyber security good practices may fall by the wayside as institutions and organizations become more technology-dependent than ever. We are also beginning to see the nature of the threat changing, as attackers exploit uncertainty, unprecedented situations, and rapid IT and organizational change.

We need to reverse the logic of hiding weaknesses: today, our regulatory systems encourage to hide weaknesses: people are expected to guarantee that all risks are covered, rather than pointing out what weaknesses may still exist. This needs to change -we should give incentives to come forward with vulnerabilities and ask for help and cooperation.  We have seen, for example, how big tech rewards individuals who are able to identify security loopholes in their systems.

Security should not only be a technical issue but also a management issue. Security is never a given, an organization cannot simply build a wall behind which it can protect itself. It is a matter of balancing between security versus usability, or openness versus closeness… Organizations should also think about how to strengthen the weakest link - people and their behavior - an issue which will be discussed at this conference.

Cybersecurity today concerns everyone, the question is not whether you will be attacked, but when you will be attacked.

Cyber attacks pose an existential threat to our security, our economies and our democracies. Not only at technical level, but also by eroding the trust of citizens. Still, cybersecurity often disproportionately focuses on the protection of information, databases, devices, assets and infrastructures connected to the internet, rather than on the protection of connected users.

Let me reiterate that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including privacy, data protection, freedom of expression and assembly, should be of central importance in the sphere of cybersecurity. This relates to the fact that many rights and freedoms of citizens are often being limited in the in the name of national security, therefore, it is crucial that the bases for those limitations are legitimate, necessary and proportional to the security threats.

As UNDP, we are also responsible for protection of rights of people, whose data is being used and collected through digital means. We, therefore, have recently developed a Guidance to UNDP Country Offices on the privacy, data protection and broader human rights dimensions of using digital technologies to combat COVID-19.

I am very pleased that you are all here today to strengthen cooperation locally and internationally as well as across the public and private sector. The main thing is for us all to work more closely together - so that we reduce the risks - both at national and at international level.

I hope this cybersecurity conference will bring you new insights on the most pressing cybersecurity challenges and result in new partnerships to help us connect forces to protect the people and institutions.

Thank you for joining us!