The two-day IT SPOT 2025 conference, organized by the non-governmental organization ICT Cortex in Podgorica, offered attendees a combination of inspiring lectures, interactive workshops, and networking opportunities during its first day.
In the second part of today’s program, cybersecurity expert and CISO, Jelena Zelenović Matone, spoke about the complex role of artificial intelligence in the cybersecurity sector.
“Artificial intelligence can magnify both the good and the bad. AI depends on what we choose to do with it. We decide what we will do with AI. On the good side, we see that artificial intelligence helps us detect anomalies much faster than before; we can also see and predict cyberattacks. Automated responses are also very important. Previously, it would take analysts several hours or even several days to detect cyberattacks. Now, with artificial intelligence, we have a response that takes seconds. We are working at the speed of machines. The negative sides are that we have deepfake attacks where it is very difficult to discern what is real and what is not. The problem is that we, as experts, do not have enough tools to detect what is real and what is not. We also see that AI is mutating and fighting against our defense. The most important thing is how we manage AI and what we do with it,” stated Zelenović Matone.
As part of the panel “Who is Building Cybersecurity in the Region,” Dr. Andreja Mihailović, President of Women4Cyber Montenegro, pointed out that the way we think about artificial intelligence needs to change.
“The most important knowledge we can have today is not how to compete with artificial intelligence, but to learn how to coexist with it. Cybersecurity once closed digital doors, but today it understands both human and artificial ways of thinking. The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act clearly states that responsibility, human oversight, and transparency are not philosophical concepts, but are obligations in practice,” Mihailović stated.
Miloš Martinović, Head of the Business Continuity and Information Security Department at the Central Bank of Montenegro, presented plans for the implementation of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) Regulation.
“We have created the first draft of the Law on Digital and Operational Resilience for credit institutions, but the Financial Stability Council requested amendments and asked for the inclusion of insurance companies and investment funds. Therefore, we will have a law on digital and operational resilience for the entire financial sector. Implementation will be challenging because banks have a cumbersome information security structure, especially those banks that are part of large foreign groups,” Martinović stated.
Gilles Schwoerer, Program Director and Head of the Western Balkans Cyber Capacity Centre (WB3C), stated that change in the cybersecurity sector must start with universities.
“We started with long-term training programs leading to a degree. In February, we are starting a Bachelor’s program in Digital Forensics. We need people not only with a degree but also those who will be ready to provide answers to the problems faced by administrations, ministries, or companies in the cybersecurity sector. We need practice/exercises in that sector,” said Schwoerer.
Duško Karaklajić, Security and Compliance expert from Amazon Web Services (AWS), drew attention to the localization of cybersecurity issues.
“European regulation is very fragmented, which means that even though we have common regulations such as DORA, there are always local specificities. It is important to know how to establish local regulatory standards to achieve resilience. These activities can range from workshops for lawmakers to educational conversations. Partnership with the academic community is also important, and it is necessary to know how to apply theoretical knowledge in real-life scenarios,” stated Karaklajić.
The final panel today was dedicated to the new generation of AI.
“Today, we are not just using chatbots to answer questions within set constraints; we are creating virtual agents that have autonomy and the ability to reason and learn from experience. The goal is for them to be able to predict and react, but also to learn in order to create new iterations of the same actions,” explained Vlada Sebastiao, Solutions Engineer at Cloudflare.
Boris Bilecki, Chief Solutions Architect at Backbase, explained how the development of the new generation of AI came about.
“First we had chatbots, the next step was copilots and assistants—these are entities that had tools and could execute activities that you approved. And now we have agents—entities that have their own brains and have access to tools, capable of remembering conversations, making decisions, and having interaction with other agents,” explained Bilecki.
João Souza, Data Scientist at Amazon Web Services (AWS), indicated that today they are giving systems enough autonomy to make decisions independently.
“Now we have systems that interact with the world through API calls and web navigation, which is all connected to the shift towards AI autonomy. The explanation for why all of this is happening now is because the infrastructure is being improved, and we have models like GPT-4,” Souza stated.
Radosław Sznajder, Head of Support at Voluum / Codewise, stated that they use artificial intelligence to answer the simplest, repetitive questions daily, in order to ensure employees have more time to deal with more complex issues, clients, and personal development.
“The most important thing when introducing any new technology is education. People should be allowed to play with AI bots. The more interaction they have with the AI model, the better they can get to know it and not be afraid. The worst-case scenario is being uninformed. The better they understand artificial intelligence, the more they will know that AI is there for them, not to replace them. The goal is not for them to lose their jobs, but to make them more productive. AI should do things for employees, not instead of them,” Sznajder concluded.
The interesting panels and presentations within the third edition of the IT SPOT conference will continue tomorrow at the Montenegro Music Centre starting at 10 AM.
