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CIONET - What's next

Connecting ambitious digital leaders and businesses around the globe.

Catch up on the upcoming CIONET Events

             
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Germany Sep 9, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Frankfurt: AI Driven Logistics

Vom ersten Use Case zur strategischen Neuausrichtung CIONET lädt bereits zum vierten Mal zu einem exklusiven Roundtable für CIOs und Digitalverantwortliche aus Logistik und Handel ein. Im Mittelpunkt des Abends steht die Frage, wie Unternehmen ihre KI-Initiativen erfolgreich skalieren und aus ersten Use Cases echten strategischen Mehrwert schaffen. Microsoft 365 für Frontline Worker: Moderne Tools, die Mitarbeitende im Tagesgeschäft entlasten ServiceNow für Prozessintegration: Automatisierte End-to-End-Workflows – vom Schadensfall bis zur Retourenabwicklung KI-gestützte Disposition und Planung: Mit smarten Algorithmen zur optimierten Supply Chain Digitale Lieferketten und letzte Meile: Transparenz, Effizienz und Kundenzentrierung durchgängig gedacht

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Belgium Sep 13, 2025 All Members Physical english

CIONET Cycling Event

Join us for a wonderful ride. The ride is accessible to all levels of riders and doesn't require extensive technical skills. More information will follow soon. Looking forward to ride together!

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Germany Sep 17, 2025 Country Members Physical german

München: Cyber Security Fatigue

Cybersecurity ist längst kein reines IT-Thema mehr – sie betrifft das gesamte Unternehmen. Doch während die Bedrohungslage zunimmt, geraten viele Security-Verantwortliche an ihre Belastungsgrenzen: zwischen 24/7-Verantwortung, wachsenden Anforderungen und dem ständigen Innovationsdruck.

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Germany Sep 17, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Köln: CIO & CISO, das Rezilienz-Power-Duo

IT-Betrieb und Cybersicherheit stehen heute unter extremem Druck: steigende Komplexität, wachsende regulatorische Anforderungen (NIS2, DORA, KRITIS), chronische Ressourcenknappheit – und gleichzeitig eine Bedrohungslage, die keine Verzögerungen duldet. Trotzdem agieren viele IT- und Security-Teams noch immer in Silos. Die Folge: ineffiziente Abläufe, Tool-Wildwuchs, langsame Reaktion auf Vorfälle und unklare Verantwortlichkeiten.

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Germany Sep 18, 2025 Country Members Virtual german

Online: Nachhaltige IT - CIDO Priorität

Nachhaltigkeit ist für CIOs nicht nur ein „Nice-to-have“, sondern eine strategische Priorität – sie beeinflusst direkt die finanzielle Performance, die operative Effizienz und die langfristige Wettbewerbsfähigkeit.

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Belgium Sep 18, 2025 Country Members Physical french

Les Rencontres: La dette technique : Un défi stratégique pour les entreprises

La dette technique est comparable à la négligence des réparations d'une maison. Ignorer un toit qui fuit peut faire gagner du temps aujourd'hui, mais cela pourrait conduire à l'effondrement du plafond plus tard. Pour remédier à la dette technique, il faut trouver et réparer ces fuites dès maintenant et mettre en place un plan d'entretien de la maison afin qu'elle soit prête pour les extensions futures. Pour résoudre ces problèmes, il faut définir des priorités stratégiques, communiquer clairement avec les parties prenantes et établir une feuille de route à long terme pour la modernisation. Cet événement se déroulera entièrement en français.

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Recent Cases

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Leicester’s De Montfort University maximises email and server protection with Trend Micro

Maximises email and server protection with Trend Micro

OVERVIEW

De Montfort University is amongst the 200 best young universities in the world and 97.3 percent of its graduates from summer 2017 entered the workforce or went on to further study. The university also achieved the highest rating—gold—in the government’s 2017 Teaching Excellence Framework, judged to have “outstanding” teaching, learning, and outcomes for students. More recently, it has completed a £136 million transformation of its campus.

Unified Communications Manager, Jon O’Grady, works in the university’s IT and media services, managing its 25,000 students and 3,000 staff who use Microsoft® Office 365® for instant access to productivity apps.

 
 

CHALLENGES

Like many universities, De Montfort is an attractive target for financially motivated cybercrime groups as well as state-sponsored attackers. This is due to the large numbers of users and the personal and financial data, not to mention the sensitive IP the institution holds in the form of ground-breaking research from its students and faculty.

Chinese state hackers have attacked USCanadian and Australian universities in the past, while Iranian spies have been blamed for attacks on their UK counterparts. Meanwhile, a report from 2017 claimed that nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of UK universities have been victim of phishing attacks; even those running GCHQ-certified information security courses. Phishing isn’t just targeted at staff and students to elicit personal and financial information, it can also be the first stage in a more sophisticated attempt to breach security systems, exploit server vulnerabilities, and steal large data stores.

Balancing open access for large numbers of mobile users while keeping threats at bay can be a challenge for university IT security teams, and while crucial teaching and learning resources can now be found online, such networks also act as an entry point for ransomware attacks.

 
 

WHY TREND

Aware of the rising threats facing his organization, Jon O’Grady knew he needed to improve cybersecurity. The university’s IT team undertook a gap analysis, using the National Cyber Security Centre’s popular 10 Steps to Cybersecurity guidance document. Among other things, it calls for anti-malware defences to be established across organizations and recommends a patch update mechanism for all systems to maximise baseline security.

After running a tendering process via its reseller, Software Box, De Montfort University chose Trend Micro in June 2018 to provide malware protection and traffic monitoring for its servers with the award-winning Trend Micro Deep Security platform. Trend Micro was also chosen to replace the existing desktop AV solution with the Smart Protection Complete Suite; providing security via Office Scan for desktops, Hosted Email Security; a cloud hosted Email Gateway, and Cloud App Security for Office 365.

 

"Our account manager is always there for queries. The relationship is one of the best we have with the major vendors.:

Jon O’Grady - United Communications Manager of De Montfort University

 
 

SOLUTION

Smart Protection Complete Suite integrates security across multiple layers of an organization’s IT infrastructure—endpoint, mobile, email, and web—with centralised management and flexible deployment for on-premises and cloud environments. The Trend Micro XGen™ security solution combines layers of cross-generational threat protection techniques, applying the right tool at the right time for cross-layer detection and response without false positives. It includes high-fidelity machine learning, behavioural analysis, web and file reputation, app control and more. It’s all joined up with connected threat defence, which means each layer shares intelligence on suspicious network activity with the next.

Cloud App Security enhances in-built Office 365 security with data loss prevention (DLP), advanced sandbox analysis, and more to stop threats—including phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and ransomware.

Hosted Email Security is a zero maintenance offering that stops email-based malware in the cloud before it even has a chance to hit the corporate network. Protects Microsoft® Exchange®, Office 365, and other hosted email solutions.

Deep Security has kept Trend Micro as the number one server security vendor every year since 2009, according to IDC1. It features the same industry-leading XGen approach, for powerful protection with minimal impact on performance across physical, virtual, and hybrid cloud environments. Centralised management, automated, hostbased protection and proactive defense via intrusion prevention and virtual patching helps accelerate compliance, stop attacks, and minimise disruption.

 

"We used basic Office 365 protection for years but had been affected by multiple phishing attacks on our students, so we made the decision to enhance our security in this area."

Jon O’Grady - United Communications Manager of De Montfort University

 
 

RESULTS

Jon O’Grady and his team have been enormously impressed with the capabilities offered by Trend Micro at the server and email security layer. He says Trend Micro Hosted Email Security has delivered a “massive improvement” over the previous solution, blocking four million suspicious emails each month. Its success led to the university’s further investment in Trend Micro Cloud App Security to offer additional protection to its student population.

“We used basic Office 365 protection for years but had been affected by multiple phishing attacks on our students, so we made the decision to enhance our security in this area,” says Jon O’Grady. On the server side, Jon O’Grady is pleased with Deep Security’s ease of deployment, high protection rate, usability, and optimised performance. “The intrusion prevention system (IPS) on the server estate has managed to prevent threats on our legacy servers, which is a great benefit as we couldn’t patch these due to their age. IPS allowed us to mitigate risk until we decommissioned them,” he says.

De Montfort’s IT team purchased through its reseller but it maintains a fantastic direct relationship with Trend Micro. “Our account manager is always there for queries—he comes on site, checks everything is fine, and offers technical assistance where necessary,” Jon O’Grady concludes. “The relationship is one of the best we have with the major vendors.”

Checkout our CIONET COOKBOOK

cookbook

Embark on a culinary journey through the ever-evolving world of digital leadership with our third edition of the CIONET Cookbook: Recipes for Digital Success. Unveiling the intricate trilemma faced by today’s Master Chefs, our trailblazing European CIOs address a challenge at the nexus of customer interests, digital transformation strategies, and IT modernisation. Their secret? Synchronising the gearing between customer, business, and technology to create a frictionless movement through the digital landscape.

The CIONET Cookbook uses the analogy of a five-star restaurant to explain the importance of optimally integrated technology, with the CIO as Master Chef. In order to provide the best service to its customers, a top restaurant must have the right atmosphere, an inviting menu, a well-equipped kitchen, talented and committed front-of-house and kitchen staff and smooth-running processes that ensure an enjoyable experience for diners.

CIONET TV

 
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Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge

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Isabelle Droll - CIO for Airline, Corporate, Hotels & Resorts and Sustainability at TUI - Data, Diversity, and Destinations

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Sharon Prior - CIO in transition - How Great Tech Leadership Begins with Business Thinking

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José Antonio López, Group CIO at TOUS - Jewels, Data & AI: Inside the Digital Transformation of TOUS

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Tom Tanghe - General Manager ITC EMEA at Daikin Europe - Reinventing the CIO Role

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CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor

CIONET Reports

 
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Cybersecurity in critical infrastructure

Geopolitical tensions have dominated the headlines for over two years now. In this context, the cyber threat landscape is also evolving rapidly. The protection and security of critical infrastructure – both physical and digital – is becoming increasingly important.

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HDS - From Hype to Reality Navigating the Challenges of GenAI

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Integration In An Era Of AI: Challenges And Opportunities

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“The CIONET App allows us to learn from eachother and and find the courage to be authentic by hearing stories from others! Thanks to Tobias and the whole team for bringing us together:-) ”
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About CIONET

CIONET’s mission is to help IT executives become more at ease and above all more successful in their jobs. So they can do more than just keep up with change but ultimately define it. CIONET opens up a whole new universe of opportunities in IT management.

With the largest membership of corporate digital leaders across Europe, Latin America, US and Australia, CIONET has the expertise and pioneering vision to solve or address any IT management challenge.

Why join CIONET?

From our local and global events, from our publications and research to our executive education programmes, everything we do is aimed at making sure digital leaders maximise their potential.

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with digital leaders who share your interests, who face the same challenges, who care about the same topics.

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inspiration, thought-provoking conversations, expert perspectives and exclusive first-hand content each and every day

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