Belnet Community Day

Introduction - 10'

Arnaud Vajda, President, Belspo

Welcome speech - 10'

Dirk Haex, Managing Director, Belnet

Belnet roadmap (organisation and services) - 40'

Speaker
Dirk Osstyn heads the Business & Community organisation at Belnet. His team oversees the entire customer journey, from innovation and product management to marketing and account management. Dirk is passionate about building strong relationships with Belnet’s community and is always eager to listen to your needs and challenges, ensuring that Belnet continues to serve you in the best possible way.

Lookback security incident April 2025 - 30'

Summary
What happened, how could it happen and how did we deal with it? These are the main questions we will try to clarify in this short session about the security incident that hit Belnet in april 2025.
This is also a reflection on what we went through and how this changes the way we understand certain aspects of incident response.

Speaker
Stefan Eestermans works as Information Security Manager for Belnet. Together with his team they manage the operational aspects of cyber security, ranging from the implementation of security controls and monitoring to security incident response. Stefan considers his role on the crisis team as a privilege and a great opportunity to learn from the security incident.

Reminder OCRE24 - 15'

Speaker
Jean Pierre Aerts, Belnet

GÉANT framework - 15'

Speaker
B. Ajbar el Gueriri, GÉANT

Q&A - 10'

Speed talk vendors (90 sec per vendor) - 20'

Are you ready for a (cyber) crisis? How crisis exercises strengthen resilience - 30'

Summary
Is your organisation prepared for a cyberattack? How can you ensure your crisis team collaborates effectively, and how do you communicate with the outside world during a ransomware incident? In this session, we will explore the challenges that come with a cyber crisis and show how organisations can prepare.
We will present Belnet’s training programme for the Research & Education community, which helps organisations test their procedures, raise awareness, and identify areas for improvement through realistic cyber crisis exercises. You will hear from the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) on how such an exercise strengthened their processes and enhanced their ability to manage cyber incidents with confidence.

Speakers
Since joining Belnet in 2014, Davina Luyten has been responsible for shaping and delivering the organisation’s external communications and public relations. She has a particular interest in crisis communication and security awareness, two areas where effective communication plays a crucial role in building trust and resilience.

Immediately after completing his studies in computer science at UMH (UMONS) just over 20 years ago, Xavier Delor joined KBR as a systems manager. He gradually took the lead of the ICT department, which he manages in a pragmatic manner. Loyal to his institution, he draws on his experience every day to tackle today's challenges: enabling scientific and cultural institutions to combine scientific innovation and IT security while working with increasingly limited resources.

Security incident April 2025 : Root cause analysis, lessons learnt & Improvements - 30'

Summary
In this session our CISO will explain the important link between incidents and risk management. An incident is not only an ideal opportunity to test and strengthen the defences, but also to dive into the systemic root cause(s) of an incident and what to do with it to avoid recurrence of similar incidents. This necessitates revisiting your risk register! By way of example you also will learn about some organisational improvements Belnet decided to carry out.

Speaker
G. Pappas

Evolution, roadmap & vision Belnet network

Speaker
Stefan Gulinck, Belnet

Evolution of the internet (trends and impact of geopolitical situations)

Daily operations: visualisation tool

Speaker
J. Van Overmeir, Belnet

Q&A

Introduction: Strategic agenda Belnet for Innovation (part services) - 15'

Summary
Digital opportunities arise in all sorts of activities and sectors throughout the Belgian and European landscape and within the divers Belnet community. In order to see if those opportunities are worth investigating at Belnet, a Strategic Innovation Agenda (SIA) has been created. In the introduction of the innovation sessions we will explain the SIA and how the SIA is the gateway to more concrete actions where Belnet is involved in. Each session will then zoom in on two of those specific actions.

Speaker
As Innovation Lead, Niels Deriemaecker is taking up the role at Belnet to scope for new opportunities and promising technologies together with his colleagues in the innovation team. Those opportunities in the near, mid-term and long term future might play an important role the Belnet community, the Belnet strategy and even for society as a whole. Niels gained experience by being an accountmanager at Belnet for 7 years. It was the perfect basis for learning how to connect to new and existing partner initiatives and organisations and how to build strong relationships in Belgium and across Europe where new opportunities arise.

FedOSC - 25'

Summary
Belnet is launching a new Persistent Identifier (PID) service based on the Handle system, ensuring long-term accessibility and citability of research outputs while complementing our existing DOI offerings.
This session introduces PIDs and explains when to use Handle versus DOI systems. Unlike per-item DOI registration, Handle uses prefixes enabling unlimited PID creation, making it cost-effective for large-scale research infrastructures. Using a DNS analogy, we'll explain the technical architecture and the difference between registration and hosting components.
Our service operates through the international ePIC consortium, providing 24/7 global availability with cross-border mirroring. Key features include flexible metadata structures, transparent pricing (€49/year prefix registration, tiered hosting from €50/year), and migration support for existing Handle users.

Speaker
Sam Kauranne is the global project manager for the Federal Open Science Cloud (FedOSC) project at Belnet. FedOSC is a federal initiative to promote Open Science and FAIR data practices within the Belgian federal scientific community.

GÉANT - 20'

• What's is it for the R&E community in Belgium
• Current projects
• Q&A

Speaker
Jennifer Ross has been a part of GÉANT’s Partner Relations & Insights team for over 5 years. Based in Amsterdam, she is the relationship manager for a group of NRENs, including Belnet, and the sub-task lead on Insights, including responsibility for the GÉANT Compendium of NRENs.

Intro: strategic agenda Belnet for Innovation (N. Deriemaecker) - 5'

Summary
Digital opportunities arise in all sorts of activities and sectors throughout the Belgian and European landscape and within the divers Belnet community. In order to see if those opportunities are worth investigating at Belnet, a Strategic Innovation Agenda (SIA) has been created. In the introduction of the innovation sessions we will explain the SIA and how the SIA is the gateway to more concrete actions where Belnet is involved in. Each session will then zoom in on two of those specific actions.

Speaker
As Innovation Lead, Niels Deriemaecker is taking up the role at Belnet to scope for new opportunities and promising technologies together with his colleagues in the innovation team. Those opportunities in the near, mid term and long term future might play an important role the Belnet community, the Belnet strategy and even for society as a whole.
Niels gained experience by being an accountmanager at Belnet for 7 years. It was the perfect basis for learning how to connect to new and exisiting partner initiatives and organisations and how to build strong relationships in Belgium and across Europe where new opportunities arise.

Boosted/BTFS - 25'

Summary
The BTFS is a new type of infrastructure born from the BOOSTED project, a collaborative initiative between the Royal Observatory of Belgium and Belnet. Its goal is to design and implement a high-precision Time & Frequency (T&F) distribution network across Belgium using the Belnet optical backbone, to deliver the accurate signals generated by the atomic clocks operated by the Observatory. By leveraging advanced synchronization techniques, BTFS/BOOSTED aims to provide services to universities, scientific institutions and other end users that rely on precise and resilient timing. This project strengthens Belgium's infrastructure for time-sensitive applications such as research, navigation, telecommunications, energy or even geophysics.

Speakers
Raphael Marion has a background as Industrial Engineer in electromechanics and as experimental Physicist in atomic and laser physics. Today, he is the technical coordinator of the Time&Frequency lab at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, and the Principal Investigator of the BOOSTED project.
Lisa Van Loo has a background as a Networks and Systems engineer and today works as a Technical Advisor for Belnet. She is one of the stakeholders of the BOOSTED project and the development of BTFS.

Quantum Communication Infrastructure - 20'

Speaker
J. Van Overmeir, Belnet

SOC/SIEM - 30'

Summary
The session opens with an overview by Jean Pierre Aerts, highlighting Belnet’s initiative to develop a shared SOC service for the Research and Education Community and the challenges of uniting diverse technical environments under a single framework. He will note that, in the meantime, the community can access SOC services from Inetum through the OCRE24 framework.
Peter Vandeput (Inetum) will then present its Managed Detection & Response (MDR) service, offering 24/7 monitoring, detection, and rapid incident response. Participants will be guided through the key functionalities of the service and will gain practical insights on how to prepare their organization for adopting an MDR solution.

Speakers
Jean Pierre joined Belnet six years ago as a Product Manager and quickly became known for his drive and strong customer focus. He played a key role in establishing and rolling out the OCRE framework across the Belnet community. Before joining Belnet, he built an extensive career at Oracle, where he also worked as a Product Manager.

Peter Vandeput recently joined Inetum following a long career at Atos. With more than 30 years of experience in IT and over a decade in the field of security, he brings extensive expertise, particularly in managed security services. Rather than a hardcore technologist, Peter is a seasoned business manager who excels at bridging the gap between technology and real business needs.

DDoS : Volumetric vs Applicative protection - 30'

Summary
Take a deep dive into Belnet’s DDoS Mitigation service, exploring the differences between volumetric and application-layer attacks. Get a sneak peek at the service roadmap and see how Belnet stays ahead of evolving threats. Current users will also be guided through the newly added DDoS dashboard and its features.

Speaker
Gregory Degueldre is a Network Architect at Belnet. After graduating as a civil engineer with a telecom specialization from the Royal Military Academy, he spent a long career in the Belgian army before joining Belnet nearly ten years ago. Combining his deep networking expertise with a strong interest in security, Gregory has become the team’s go-to DDoS expert.

Keynote: Securing AI in the heart of Europe: A perspective for the Belnet community - 30'

Summary
As artificial intelligence becomes integrated into research, education, and public sector services, ensuring its security and trustworthiness is more important than ever. This keynote presentation explores current AI security trends and risks, including adversarial threats, data vulnerabilities, and supply chain concerns. We will highlight open-source contributions from Cisco and the broader community, emphasizing the value of transparency and collaboration. The session will also cover advances in AI pentesting and validation techniques, such as algorithmic pentesting and developing guard rails to ensure safe and ethical AI deployment. Drawing on research from organizations like FoundationAI, attendees will gain l insights and recommendations for building resilient AI systems while fostering a culture of shared responsibility across the Belnet community.

Speaker
Jan Heijdra is a seasoned technology executive with over 15 years of experience in the industry. As a Field CTO for cybersecurity & AI , Jan acts as a trusted advisor to organizations, drives AI Security community initiatives and actively participates in public-private partnerships. Jan plays a pivotal role in sharing new innovations and concepts. He is a thought leader in the security industry with a passion for innovation and a deep commitment to protecting organizations from cyber threats.

Wrap-up and closing - 15'

Speaker
Frédéric Libotte, Belnet