On 2–3 September, SIESTA participated in the I Jornadas sobre Criptografía y Ciberseguridad en Ciencia de Datos, held in Castro Urdiales (Cantabria, Spain) and organised by the Instituto de Física de Cantabria (IFCA, CSIC-UC) and the UC–INCIBE Cybersecurity Chair on New Challenges in Cybersecurity.
For two days, researchers, professionals, and students gathered to explore some of the most pressing challenges in today’s digital security landscape. One of the central topics was post-quantum cryptography, a field that is rapidly gaining importance as quantum technologies evolve. Quantum computers, with their extraordinary processing power, will be able to break many of the cryptographic systems currently in use. This creates an urgent need to develop new algorithms that can withstand such threats and guarantee secure communications in the future.
Another major theme was privacy in artificial intelligence. As machine learning models become more powerful and widely deployed, they increasingly rely on vast amounts of personal and sensitive data. The sessions addressed methods designed to protect this information, such as federated learning and privacy-preserving techniques, which allow AI systems to improve without compromising the confidentiality of the data they process.
Finally, participants delved into the field of advanced encryption technologies, including homomorphic encryption and secure multiparty computation. These methods open the door to performing complex calculations on encrypted data without the need to expose it, which is crucial for scenarios that demand both efficiency and strong guarantees of privacy.
The event was not only an academic meeting, but also a space for collaboration between universities, industry, and institutions. It reinforced the idea that cybersecurity challenges cannot be addressed in isolation, and that a stronger culture of trust and knowledge sharing is needed to face the threats of an increasingly digital world.
For SIESTA, this event represented an opportunity to strengthen ties with the broader scientific and technological community. The project places special emphasis on building trust and transparency in data science through secure, open, and federated infrastructures. Events such as these are aligned with SIESTA’s mission, as they foster dialogue and cooperation among stakeholders from different fields.
The strong participation and the high quality of the presentations confirmed the value of creating forums for exchange and debate. Looking ahead, initiatives like the I Jornadas sobre Criptografía y Ciberseguridad will continue to contribute to the development of a robust cybersecurity culture in Spain and across Europe.