During the war in Ukraine, the cyber threat situation has intensified. According to the BSI, ransomware is becoming the biggest IT security threat. Sophos, Microsoft and Rhode & Schwarz have joined forces to form the Ransomware Initiative under the umbrella of eco and recommend 10 technical and organisational precautions.

The European Court of Justice today ruled that the German regulations on blanket data retention are not compatible with EU law. The eco Association welcomes this judgement and calls for an urgent repeal of the current regulations.

The European Commission has presented the proposal for the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) regulation. Prof. Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, believes it is understandable that the EU wants to make digital systems even more secure and resilient in the future. However, he does not see an automatic improvement in security in the planned rules.

Employees are the most important link in the security chain in the fight against cybercrime, says Marcus Beyer from Swisscom. He presents the contents of his talk at the Internet Security Days (ISD) presentation in a short interview. The eco Association invites you to attend this IT security conference on 29-30 September 2022 at Phantasialand Brühl, Germany.

“For a sustainable mobility transition, a mobility ecosystem is needed that enables the sovereign and secure exchange of data among all actors involved, emphasises Oliver Süme, Chair of the Board of the eco Association.

Orchestrating value networks to realise new business models and produce more sustainably is exactly what the Gaia-X-Federation Services project (GXFS) is realising as the nucleus of software for Gaia-X. Klaus Ottradovetz from Atos, Ernst Stöckl-Pukall from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, and Harald A. Summa from the eco Association discussed why Europe needs Gaia-X at the GXFS Connect in Berlin.

In the legal dispute between SpaceNet AG and the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will decide on 20 September whether the German regulations on data retention are compatible with EU law. eco has supported the lawsuit of SpaceNet AG from the beginning. According to the Association’s assessment, the general and unconditional storage of traffic data, with around 2.35 billion data records per day (IP addresses and telephony), affects almost all German users and costs the industry more than 600 million Euros.

On the occasion of the State of the European Union speech by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, expected on Wednesday, 14 September, eco Chair Oliver Süme said: "We live in challenging times. The threat of climate change and the current energy crisis as a result of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine show us that we must strive harder than ever for a more resource- and energy-efficient way of living and doing business. At the same time, digital resilience and technological sovereignty are becoming more important than ever."

Cybercriminals are increasingly well organised, and the risk and consequences of a cybersecurity incident are underestimated by many, explains Chris Lichtenthäler, Senior Manager at auditing firm Deloitte, in an interview: You talk about “Crime as a Service” - how well organised are cybercriminals? That depends...

An Interview with Christoph van Lück, Chair of the Board at ECHO

An interview with Henning von Kielpinski, Cloud Onboarding Lead EMEA/JAPAC at Google Germany

Developing applications in the public cloud and for the public cloud – ISG and EuroCloud Native (ECN) are also evaluating the extent to which companies from Germany already rely on cloud native technologies in 2022. The partners will present the results of the newly launched joint study on 27 October at the ECN Summit...

After more than 25 years as CEO and five years as Chair of the DE-CIX Group AG Board, Harald A. Summa is stepping down to take a seat on the DE-CIX Supervisory Board. He is succeeded by Ivo Ivanov, who has until now been the member of the DE-CIX Group AG Board responsible for international business and strategy.

According to a recent representative population survey by eco – Association of the Internet Industry and the market and opinion research company Civey*, 64.2 per cent of those surveyed want children to learn how to counter bullying and hatred online while they are in school.

Minimise the virtual attack surface and strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty. Gregor Peter, Technical Solution Engineer at Myra Security GmbH talks about how this can be achieved in an interview.

Sidonie Krug joined the Managing Board at eco – Association of the Internet Industry as a new member on 1 September 2022. Krug has worked at eco since 2013 and has been responsible for political communication as well as the entire association communication as head since 2020.

eco Board Prof. Norbert Pohlmann: “Avoid national unilateralism. User-friendliness and open standards should be at the heart of promoting acceptance of digital identities and open competition.” 

It will be the eco Association’s 24th time participating in the ICANN75 Annual General Meeting in Malaysia from 17 to 22 September 2022. This is the annual General Meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The human factor plays a central role in IT security, says Vivien Schiller from adesso SE in a short interview. She will also speak on this topic at the ISDs on 30 September at Phantasialand Brühl.

In the combination of cybersecurity and conventional property protection, many companies miss out on vulnerabilities. Lukas Grunwald from DN-Systems explains how cybercriminals exploit these vulnerabilities, both in his contribution at ISD 2022 and in this short interview.

Dallas 560.17 Gbps, Frankfurt 12.43 Tbps, Hamburg 280.2 Gbps, Marseille 170.16 Gbps... and that's just this week. It might be the core season for holidays in northern hemisphere, but the data throughput at DE-CIX Internet Exchanges keeps on growing.

Tomorrow the German federal government wants to adopt its revised digital strategy and thus finally give Germany a „comprehensive digital awakening”. This move towards digital transformation is long overdue. The current Digital Policy Opinion Barometer shows that 71.1 per cent of German citizens are not satisfied with digital policy in any area.

Harald A. Summa was recently re-elected to the Internet Society’s Organization Member Advisory Council (OMAC) for another two years. Here he not only describes the aims of OMAC and the Internet Society, but also shares his reasons for being a committed volunteer.

Gaia-X can reduce costs in the long term and create new business opportunities, says Matthias Brucke in an interview. The founder and Managing Director of embeteco will be speaking on the panel at the GXFS Connect Conference in Berlin on 8 September about the exchange with Gaia-X Hub DE Domains.

An interview with Marco Bellof and Florian Schulz, VS-Apps GmbH 

Holiday time is burglary time, a Smart Home offers appropriate security systems. However, vulnerabilities in Smart Home solutions are also becoming increasingly apparent. Jan Wendenburg, CEO, ONEKEY, explains in an interview how to secure your Smart Home solutions and the integrated connected IoT devices.

Obviously, making progress with digitalisation in Germany can only be achieved if the German federal government and the Internet industry work closely together and exchange information.

Bridging the gap and making donations more effective – that’s what Leoni Rossberg has set herself as her goal with the non-profit organisation Groundbreaker. In an eco interview, she talks about the willingness to donate in the tech industry and about better access to (digital) education in the Global South.

On 7 and 8 September 2022, some of the leading minds behind Gaia-X will meet in Berlin for GXFS Connect 2022 First implementation phase of Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS) nearing completion Gaia-X use cases from Industry 4.0, mobility or health will be presented Leading minds behind Gaia-X will discuss which...

An interview with Ingo Buck, CEO and Chair at OGiTiX Software