Member European Parlement Bart Groothuis Visits HSD Campus and ThreadStone

On Friday 11 February, member of the European Parliament Bart Groothuis visited ThreadStone Cyber Security at the HSD Campus. The purpose of this visit was to get insight in the organisations' activities in the field of cybersecurity and information security. Also, information was exchanged on the upcoming NIS-2 regulation: an EU-wide legislation on cybersecurity with the specific aim to achieve a high common level of cybersecurity across the Member States.

Joris den Bruinen, director of Security Delta (HSD), welcomed Bart Groothuis at the HSD Campus and explained what Security Delta stands for and how they are working on a cyber resilience initiative in South Holland. Afterwards, Groothuis -who has a predilection for computers and technology- spoke about his portfolio within the European Parliament, amongst digital subjects within the Commission such as Industry, Technology, Research and Energy. During the visit, the participants also spoke on upcoming changes to the European NIS-2 regulation, which aims to achieve a high level of cybersecurity in the European Union. 

René van Etten, managing director of ThreadStone, explained after a brief outline of the company’s history what ThreadStone does and which innovations the company is working on. Groothuis was particularly interested in the monitoring tool, that has the potential to scan all websites in the Netherlands on vulnerabilities, quickly and easily. 

"Making the internet safer, within countries but also internationally is now more relevant than ever", according to Groothuis. "The monitoring solution developed by Theadstone was very interesting, because it offers the possibility to provide insight into the state of security across industries, sectors and countries. Imagine that we have insight on information like this on a European level, that could be very valuable input for doing business with chain partners in Europe."

Bart Groothuis: "At the moment, where there is a physically threatening situation at the border between Russia and Ukraine, where probably a lot more is going on digitally. You could for example form a picture of all organisations in Ukraine that may be at increased risk. That could be very valuable information for chain partners in the rest of Europe, because warfare no longer only takes place physically."

ThreadStone’s René van Etten is enthusiastic about the visit. "Bart Groothuis is well introduced on the topic and very interested. It was fascinating for us to learn first-hand what is happening at the European level. At the same time, this was a great opportunity to show what we were working on at the HSD Campus and within ThreadStone; the solutions that we offer now are scalable and could be easily applied at European level. Above all, it creates mutual ground campaigning together for a common goal: making the internet safer, in the Netherlands and in Europe.’