Where will the Swiss Cyber Security Days 2027 take place?

The conference will be held in Bern, CHE.

What is the primary focus of the Swiss Cyber Security Days 2027?

The event focuses on national and international cybersecurity challenges, providing a platform for discussion and collaboration in Bern, CHE.

Swiss Cyber Security Days 2027

Name: Swiss Cyber Security Days 2027
Start: 2027-02-23T00:00:00Z
End: 2027-02-24T00:00:00Z
Location: Bern

Feb 23–24, 2027Bern, SwitzerlandIn-person

Registration open

The Swiss Cyber Security Days 2027 is a significant conference held in Bern, CHE, dedicated to addressing both national and international challenges in cybersecurity. This event serves as a crucial platform for experts, policymakers, and industry leaders to converge and discuss the evolving landscape of cyber threats and defense strategies. Its focus on a broad spectrum of cybersecurity issues underscores its relevance in an increasingly interconnected world.

Committees & topics

Topics
Global Cybersecurity and the Norms of State Behaviour in Cyberspace · Digital Sovereignty and the Governance of Critical Digital Infrastructure · Emerging Technologies and International Security · International Cooperation in Cybersecurity Research and Capacity Building · The Politics of Cyberspace: Sovereignty, Elections, and Hybrid Threats · Cybersecurity, Business Risk, and the Global Digital Economy

Why it matters

In an era where digital infrastructure underpins nearly every aspect of modern society, the integrity and resilience of cyberspace are paramount. Events like the Swiss Cyber Security Days 2027 provide a vital forum for the exchange of knowledge and the development of collaborative solutions to complex cyber challenges. The conference's location in Bern, CHE, positions it within a country known for its neutrality and its role in fostering international dialogue, which is particularly pertinent in the often-contentious domain of cybersecurity.

The discussions and outcomes from such gatherings can significantly influence national cybersecurity policies, international cooperation frameworks, and the strategic direction of technological advancements in defense against cyber threats. By bringing together diverse perspectives, the event aims to foster a more secure digital environment globally, addressing vulnerabilities and promoting best practices across various sectors.

How to prepare

Delegates preparing for the Swiss Cyber Security Days 2027 should focus on a comprehensive understanding of current cybersecurity trends and emerging threats. This includes familiarizing oneself with the latest advancements in cyber defense technologies, as well as the geopolitical implications of cyber warfare and espionage. A thorough review of the current state of international cybersecurity governance and the challenges in establishing global norms for cyberspace will also be beneficial.

Understanding the various stakeholders involved in cybersecurity, from national governments and international organizations to private sector entities and individual users, is crucial. Delegates should consider how different actors contribute to both the problems and solutions within the cyber domain. Engaging with the Model Diplomat lesson on "what-is-stakeholder-mapping" can provide a foundational understanding of identifying and analyzing these diverse interests. Furthermore, exploring the concept of "dynamic-analysis" can offer insights into understanding the constantly evolving nature of cyber threats and defense mechanisms.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Switzerland

A neutral facilitator of international cybersecurity dialogue and a proponent of robust national cyber defense.

Role in topic

CHE hosts this significant cybersecurity conference, reflecting its commitment to fostering international cooperation and dialogue on critical global issues. Its neutral stance allows it to serve as a bridge between different nations and their varied approaches to cybersecurity, promoting a collaborative environment for problem-solving.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Global Cybersecurity and the Norms of State Behaviour in Cyberspace

Cybersecurity emerged as a top-tier international issue after a string of major incidents — Stuxnet (2010), the Sony Pictures hack (2014), NotPetya (2017), SolarWinds (2020), and Colonial Pipeline (2021) — demonstrated that state and state-aligned actors could disrupt critical infrastructure, supply chains, and democratic processes. In response, the UN established two parallel tracks: the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) and the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG), which by 2021 produced consensus reports affirming that international law, including the UN Charter, applies to cyberspace, and endorsed eleven voluntary norms of responsible state behaviour. Despite this normative framework, implementation has lagged. Ransomware attacks against hospitals and municipalities have proliferated, often from jurisdictions that tolerate criminal ecosystems. The war in Ukraine has been accompanied by sustained cyber operations against energy, telecoms, and government systems, while attribution remains politically contested. States diverge sharply on whether a binding cyber treaty is needed: Russia and China have pushed for a new UN convention (a cybercrime treaty was adopted in 2024 amid human-rights concerns), while most Western states prefer building on existing law and the Budapest Convention. The core dispute today is between a sovereignty-centred model that treats cyberspace as an extension of state control, and a multi-stakeholder model that emphasises an open, interoperable internet and protects cross-border data flows. Switzerland and other neutral states have positioned themselves as conveners, hosting confidence-building dialogues and promoting humanitarian protections in cyberspace.

Key players

Digital Sovereignty and the Governance of Critical Digital Infrastructure

Digital sovereignty — the capacity of a state or bloc to control the data, infrastructure, and technologies on which its society depends — moved to the centre of policy after the 2013 Snowden disclosures revealed the scale of foreign signals intelligence on European and other allied networks. The European Union responded with the GDPR (2018), the Data Act, the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act, while launching industrial initiatives such as GAIA-X and the European Chips Act to reduce dependence on US hyperscalers and Asian semiconductor supply. The concept has since fractured along three trajectories. The EU pursues a rights-based, regulatory sovereignty anchored in fundamental rights and competition law. The United States combines export controls (notably on advanced semiconductors to China since 2022) with reliance on its dominant cloud and platform firms. China has built a parallel digital stack under the Cybersecurity Law (2017), Data Security Law, and Personal Information Protection Law, mandating data localisation and security reviews. Switzerland, outside the EU, has adopted the revised Federal Act on Data Protection and is debating a sovereign cloud for federal workloads. The current dispute concerns where the line lies between legitimate sovereignty and digital protectionism. Cross-border data transfers (post Schrems II and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework), cloud localisation requirements, and restrictions on foreign vendors in 5G and AI infrastructure are all flashpoints, with significant implications for global trade rules under the WTO.

Key players

Emerging Technologies and International Security

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and advanced semiconductors have reshaped strategic competition. The 2022 release of large generative AI models accelerated debates over dual-use risks, leading to the UK-hosted Bletchley AI Safety Summit (2023), the Seoul and Paris follow-ups, the EU AI Act (2024), the US executive order on AI (2023) and its 2025 successor framework, and the UN General Assembly's first AI resolution (A/RES/78/265). Semiconductor policy has likewise become geopoliticised, with US export controls on advanced chips and lithography tools to China, the CHIPS Acts in the US and EU, and Taiwan's central role through TSMC. Quantum computing raises a distinct concern: the prospect that sufficiently powerful machines could break current public-key cryptography, prompting NIST's standardisation of post-quantum algorithms (2024) and national migration plans. Biotechnology and synthetic biology face dual-use governance gaps under the Biological Weapons Convention, while space-based sensing, autonomy, and AI-enabled cyber operations blur the line between civilian and military applications. The core dispute is how to manage technologies that are predominantly developed by the private sector but have first-order national-security implications. States diverge on export controls, mandatory safety testing, open-source release of frontier models, and whether to create an international body — analogous to the IAEA — for advanced AI oversight.

Key players

International Cooperation in Cybersecurity Research and Capacity Building

Cybersecurity research has long depended on transnational collaboration: vulnerability disclosure across CERTs, academic cryptography, and joint work on standards through bodies such as ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27, IETF, and ITU-T SG17. Switzerland hosts a dense ecosystem — ETH Zurich, EPFL, the Cyber-Defence Campus, and the Geneva Dialogue on Responsible Behaviour in Cyberspace — and has played a convening role on confidence-building measures. The EU funds research through Horizon Europe and the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre in Bucharest, while the US channels investment via NSF, DARPA, and the National Cybersecurity Strategy implementation plan. Research cooperation has, however, come under strain. Concerns over intellectual-property theft, dual-use exports, and foreign-talent programmes have led several governments to introduce research-security frameworks (e.g. the US CHIPS and Science Act provisions, Australia's Foreign Arrangements Scheme, EU guidance on tackling foreign interference). Coordinated vulnerability disclosure remains uneven: some jurisdictions, notably China under its 2021 vulnerability regulation, require disclosure to national authorities before vendors, raising fears of operational stockpiling. The debate today centres on how to preserve the open scientific commons that underpins secure software and cryptography while protecting sensitive research from exploitation, and how to scale capacity building so that lower-income states are not left as the weakest link in global cyber resilience.

Key players

The Politics of Cyberspace: Sovereignty, Elections, and Hybrid Threats

Cyberspace has become a domain of overt political contestation. Documented interference in the 2016 US election, sustained disinformation operations around European votes, and influence campaigns surrounding the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have made the integrity of democratic processes a recurring agenda item at the G7, OSCE, and EU. The 2022 EU Strategic Compass and successive NATO summits (Madrid 2022, Vilnius 2023, Washington 2024) explicitly recognised hybrid and cyber threats as Article-5-relevant under certain conditions. At the UN, the OEWG on ICTs (2021–2025) has been the principal forum for state-to-state negotiation, with successor arrangements under discussion. Authoritarian and democratic states diverge on whether "information security" (a concept favoured by Russia and China, encompassing content) should sit alongside "cybersecurity" (focused on systems), a distinction with major implications for freedom of expression. Switzerland and other neutrals have advocated for protection of the "public core" of the internet and humanitarian data. The central political dispute is how democracies can defend electoral and information ecosystems without replicating the censorship tools of authoritarian competitors, and how to attribute and respond proportionately to state-sponsored operations that fall below the threshold of armed conflict.

Key players

Cybersecurity, Business Risk, and the Global Digital Economy

Cyber risk has become a material business risk. Industry estimates put the global cost of cybercrime in the multi-trillion-dollar range annually, with ransomware alone causing major disruptions in healthcare (Change Healthcare, 2024), logistics (Maersk after NotPetya, 2017), and manufacturing. Insurers have repriced cyber coverage sharply since 2020, and several have introduced war and systemic-event exclusions, exemplified by Lloyd's market bulletins in 2022–2023. Regulatory pressure has risen in parallel: the EU's NIS2 Directive and DORA, the US SEC's cyber incident disclosure rules (2023), and sector-specific regimes in finance and energy now impose binding reporting and resilience obligations. Supply-chain security has emerged as a particular concern after SolarWinds, Kaseya, MOVEit, and the XZ Utils backdoor (2024) showed how single upstream compromises can cascade across thousands of organisations. Initiatives such as the US Executive Order 14028, SBOM requirements, and the EU Cyber Resilience Act (2024) attempt to shift liability and assurance up the software stack. Switzerland's financial sector, regulated by FINMA, has aligned with international standards via the FSB's incident-reporting work and TIBER-style red-teaming. The core business-policy dispute is how to allocate cybersecurity responsibilities and liabilities among software vendors, operators of critical services, cloud providers, and end-users — and how to do so without fragmenting markets through divergent national rules.

Key players