6th Regional Cybersecurity Conference

25.11.2025

Last week, WB3C participated in the 6th Regional Cybersecurity Conference organized by the Montenegrin NGO Secure, contributing to one of the key discussions of this event: “The impact of AI on cybercrime and law enforcement.” The panel was moderated by our Senior Project Manager, Vanja Madzgalj MBE, and brought together perspectives from the public sector, private sector and the international community supporting capacity building in the region.
A central issue emerged throughout the conversation: as organizations increasingly automate their defences, what happens to the human experts? With AI performing threat analysis, pattern detection and other complex tasks, the role of cybersecurity professionals is not disappearing, it is changing. Their new value lies in oversight, critical judgment, strategic decision-making and the ability to understand and manage AI-enabled systems. This raises another pressing question: while organizations are encouraged to adopt AI, how can they protect their sensitive data from the very risks that AI tools themselves may introduce?

The discussion underscored that AI is transforming both sides of the cyber battlefield. Criminals are using it to scale attacks with unprecedented sophistication, while defenders are leveraging it to detect, analyse and respond to threats faster than ever before. This race for the upper hand demands continuous training and upskilling on all fronts: across government, critical infrastructure, law enforcement and society at large.
Panelists Gilles Schwoerer (WB3C), Bojan Miranović (Police Directorate of Montenegro) and Ivan Stankovic (Čikom) highlighted what this means in practice: how law enforcement handles AI-driven cybercrime, the types of training and support frontline teams need, the institutions most at risk and why cross-border and cross-institution cooperation is becoming indispensable.
For WB3C, these insights reinforce the importance of our mission. As AI accelerates both opportunity and risk, the Western Balkans will need strong skills, trusted partnerships and resilient institutions to stay ahead of emerging threats. WB3C remains committed to supporting that effort across the region.

Other news and events

Second Cybersecurity Diploma Prep Course Completed

Our second Prep Course cohort (December) led by Ljuban Petrovic just finished two intense weeks of learning, practice and assessment. These ICT students showed up with curiosity and ambition to build their future career in cybersecurity field.

Now, the bigger picture:

We’ve completed two Prep Course cohorts (November + December), with 18 students in total from the Western Balkans. They have already taken the final test, and the final selection will be made in January for the free Cybersecurity University Diploma starting in February 2026, delivered by WB3C in cooperation with the Université de Technologie de Troyes (UTT).

What makes this course unique is that it’s not “just another training.” It’s a real academic pathway that helps students build lasting qualifications and it sits alongside our year round short courses as part of a wider talent strategy.

What this diploma prepares students for (entry roles):
🛡️ Security Administrator
🧠 SOC Analyst (Junior)
🧪 Junior Penetration Tester
🔍 Digital Forensics Technician
✅ Cybersecurity Auditor (Junior)

What happens next:

📝 January: final selection
🎓 February 2026: one-year long diploma course starts

Our cooperation with universities is an investment in long-term cybersecurity workforce development and we have more plans for the future how to make these courses available to more people in the region.

Governing Commercial Cyber Intrusion Capabilities (CCICs)

Today, December 12th, the Western Balkans Cyber Capacity Centre (WB3C) had the pleasure to host a training on Governing Commercial Cyber Intrusion Capabilities (CCICs).
Organized by the Ministère des Affaires étrangères français and implemented by Expertise France in the framework of a European Commission subvention under the Multi-Partner Contribution Agreement (MPCA) on Cyber and Artificial Intelligence, this training gathered diverse actors involved in the cybersecurity landscape of the Western Balkans region such as diplomats, magistrates and law enforcement officers to discuss the growing challenge posed by the proliferation and irresponsible use of CCICs.

Throughout the day, participants deep dived into the characteristics of the CCICs market and exchanged the need for strong governance frameworks:
1)     Assessing the threat and current trends in the global cyber intrusion market.
2)     Decoding the Pall Mall Process: ensuring government responsible use of commercial cyber intrusion capabilities.
3)     National CCIC governance frameworks: sharing of national experiences and identifying challenges and guidance.

Complementary to the other WB3C trainings, this workshop has contributed to advancing responsible governance of CCICs and strengthening accountability in the cyber domain. We thank the speakers Mahé Dersoir (Ministère des Affaires étrangères français), Robert Pellow (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), James Shires and Lena Riecke for their precious contributions and expertise in the subject.
Moreover, we thank all participants for their active engagement and constructive exchanges, which are essential to continuously improve our collective understanding and oversight of CCICs.
We are grateful to our local partners Davide Meinero, PhD of the EU Delegation to Montenegro, Melanie Moffat of the British Embassy, Bertrand Baucher of the French Embassy and Gilles Schwoerer, Head of WB3C for supporting this initiative.

Darkweb, Crypto and OSINT Training for Police Academy Montenegro

Today, we are starting the third cycle of our specialized cybercrime training for 11 new cadets from the Police Academy of Montenegro. This ongoing initiative is building essential skills in digital investigations from the ground up.

The instruction comes directly from the field: our trainers, Yannick Casse and Cyril C. C, are serving officers from the French Gendarmerie and National Police, bringing real-world expertise to every session.
For today's police, digital literacy is as essential as field training. Building skills in OSINT, dark web monitoring and investigation and crypto-tracing isn't about specialization, it's about core competency because effective investigation requires understanding that in today's world evidence is digital, money is crypto and crimes leave traces on servers instead of streets.

The cadets will immerse themselves in digital investigation techniques over the next three days, and to solidify their learning, will conclude with a practical test, assessing their newfound skills in these critical areas.