WB3C paid a visit to the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation this week. We met with the State Secretary Calasan Tatjana to introduce WB3C’s work and share an overview of our plans for 2026, with a focus on education, young people and cooperation with universities. We talked about practical ways to support foundational awareness and cyber skills in schools and development of academic learning pathways such as micro-credentials and new degree programmes in cybersecurity and digital forensics in universities. 

The meeting was also a chance to update the Ministry on how WB3C is developing as an international organization and how our role in Montenegro and the region is growing, as well as to explore how we could work more closely in the future.
We appreciated the open and constructive exchange, and the shared understanding that investing early in digital skills and cyber awareness really matters.
Looking forward to continuing the conversation and building on this momentum.
 

Today we start a short CyberHygiene training for colleagues at Montenegro’s Ministry of European Affairs. The training is led by WB3C-s in-house trainers Cyril C. and Yannick Casse.
Over the two days, we will work through the threats civil servants face most often — phishing, malware/ransomware and social engineering — and the practical habits that reduce risk without needing to advance technical skills such as: safer daily practices, data confidentiality and clear incident response basics.
A reminder worth repeating: cyber hygiene is organizational hygiene. Firewalls and policies help, but day-to-day resilience is built in small decisions made across the institution. Every civil servant counts.
A simple checklist that pays off:
⚠️ Pause before you click (especially “urgent” emails)
⚠️ Use strong passwords/passphrases + multi-factor authentication where available
⚠️ Keep devices and apps updated
⚠️ Report suspicious activity early—speed matters

Director Gilles Schwoerer greeted the participants by emphasizing that cybersecurity culture doesn’t start in the IT department, but it starts in each inbox. We are very pleased to welcome the behind-the-scenes force driving Montenegro's successful advancement towards the EU accession and to share that WB3C is expecting its first multi-year EU grant in March this year, aimed at supporting the region in meeting the requirements from the cyber agenda and strengthening its overall resilience, especially its critical infrastructure. We look forward to joining forces with ministries around the region in 2026 - a year expected to bring a dynamic plan of activities.

We were pleased to welcome the International Telecommunication Union to WB3C again this week to continue our discussions on working together for the benefit of the region—particularly on cybersecurity for critical infrastructure. Our partnership, launched in 2024, is set to deepen as protecting critical infrastructure becomes an increasingly high priority across the Western Balkans, closely linked to the EU accession path and the need to strengthen resilience against a growing threat landscape. We met with Jaroslaw K. PONDER, Head of ITU Office for Europe and Valentina Stadnic, Programme Officer at the ITU Office for Europe, joined by Director Gilles Schwoerer and Project Assistant Vanja Radović on the WB3C side.