David van Weel

Opening day 2

The core message of the opening session was that cyber resilience now depends on confronting human optimism before it becomes operational naivety, especially as artificial intelligence increases both defensive capability and malicious reach. Host Leanne Joseph welcomed attendees to day two of ONE Conference 2026, noting that the previous day had already worked through six themes: geopolitics, the human impact, the core of tech, the future of cyber, critical infrastructure, and cyber governance. She said day two would continue those themes while focusing on the human side of cybersecurity, thanked the National Cyber Security Centre, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, and the municipality of The Hague, and introduced the Minister of Justice and Security, van Weel, as someone whose role sits where policy meets the people it is meant to protect. Minister van Weel opened with the image of buying a white car without thinking about mud puddles, using it as a metaphor for unfounded optimism. He connected that mindset to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline four years earlier, recalling that after the incident he had spoken, in his former capacity as assistant secretary general at NATO, with CEOs of pipeline construction companies who had factored many risks into the pipeline but not sabotage. He argued that the same pattern persists in cyber: too many people, including executives, still turn a blind eye to malicious actors. As an example, he cited telecoms company Odido, saying it may have believed it had sufficient measures to prevent a data breach until data from millions of customers was stolen. The minister then shifted to progress and policy. He said the Dutch Cybersecurity Act had been in place since the summer to protect the country and organizations against hacks and other cyberattacks, and that a public-private cyber resilience network launched last year now spans the Dutch business community, from small local bakeries to big multinationals. He urged attendees to join the morning session on collaborating in the cyber resilience network and Cyclotron, and to join the network afterward. He also referred to National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security Mark Kuypress, who had called the previous day for a higher gear on cyber resilience, and said the government plans to present an action plan before the end of the year. Artificial intelligence was framed as neither apocalypse nor simple opportunity, but as a force with far-reaching consequences. Van Weel compared AI’s impact to humanity’s mastery of fire: it can keep people warm or allow others to burn everything down. Used responsibly, he said, AI can support economic growth, innovation, and help address severe labor shortages by handling administrative tasks while scarce human staff focus where the human touch is important, such as at patients’ bedsides. But he warned that in the hands of hackers, spies, terrorists, extremists, criminals, and state actors, AI amplifies sabotage, disinformation, hacking, radicalization, and theft. He cited a Russian hacker group posing as a European foreign ministry to invite diplomats to wine tastings and use grey bloater malware, and a China-linked cyber espionage attack that used AI to autonomously target organizations globally. He closed by emphasizing that Europe and the Netherlands have computing power, expertise, and people, but also need unity: attendees should learn from each other and work together to keep the cyber domain safe.