King and Minister of Economic Affairs on a working visit to KPN: a look behind the scenes of digital resilience

King and Minister of Economic Affairs on a working visit to KPN: a look behind the scenes of digital resilience

On Wednesday, February 4th, together with King Willem-Alexander, the Minister of Economic Affairs, Vincent Karremans, paid a working visit to KPN's Security Operations Center (SOC) and Network Operations Center (NOC) in Hilversum. The visit provided a unique glimpse into how digital infrastructure in the Netherlands is monitored day and night and how disruptions and cyber threats are detected and addressed.

Importance of digital resilience

The working visit focused on digital resilience, a topic that has gained urgency in recent years due to geopolitical tensions, increasing cyber threats, and the heavy reliance on digital networks in our economy and society. At the NOC and the SOC, specialized teams continuously monitor KPN's fixed and mobile networks and those of its customers, with the aim of preventing outages and quickly containing incidents. The teams monitor identities, servers, databases, network applications, and websites, among other things, to detect potential cyberattacks in real time.

Minister Karremans (Economic Affairs): "Making the Netherlands more resilient requires preparation. From the government, from people at home, and from businesses. It's good to see, together with the King, how telecom providers are investing in the security and availability of the digital infrastructure in practice. Because in the event of sabotage, extreme weather, or a major outage, it can come under pressure. For example, providers are continuously monitoring to prevent outages and cyberattacks as much as possible. But they are also committed to having temporary internet and communication facilities available in emergency situations. This way, we are building a Netherlands that remains digitally strong, even in crisis situations."

"The digital security of the Netherlands cannot be taken for granted. As the manager of a large part of the country's digital infrastructure, we take that responsibility very seriously: 24 hours a day, all year round. We protect the networks and digital connections that our country runs on, in close collaboration with the government and partners in the supply chain. Because our country's digital resilience depends on this collective effort," says KPN CEO Joost Farwerck.

Collaboration in incidents

The King and the Minister spoke with staff about the daily practice of network and security monitoring. Using concrete examples, they gained insight into how suspicious activity is identified, how collaboration with government and other partners is organized, and how incidents are escalated.

Afterwards, visitors were given a demonstration by VodafoneZiggo of the Vodafone Foundation's "Instant Network." This mobile emergency communications service is used worldwide during disasters to quickly restore connections between aid workers, citizens, and government agencies when regular networks are down.

During this visit, we were able to demonstrate how the resilience of our networks works in practice. Our teams monitor the networks daily to identify anomalies early and intervene before users notice them. Resilience isn't a single measure, but a holistic approach: multiple layers of security, continuous monitoring, and adequate and proactive follow-up," explains KPN CISO Vladimir Cibic.

The working visit concluded with a roundtable discussion with representatives from the entire digital infrastructure chain, including data centers, internet exchanges, and submarine cable providers. This chain functions as an ecosystem, the reliability of which depends on mutual collaboration. As the manager of a large part of the Dutch digital infrastructure - including fixed and mobile networks - and as a partner of the Ministry of Defense, KPN is a key player in this.

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