Conference Description
Key Takeaways
- Non-profit, practitioner-led conference focused exclusively on cloud security research and real-world defence strategies
- Covers attack techniques, security control limitations, and practical challenges across major cloud platforms
- Designed for security engineers, architects, CISOs, and DevSecOps professionals working with cloud infrastructure
- Takes place in London on 7–8 September 2026
- Supported by sponsors including Wiz, Datadog, Sysdig, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and AWS
Introduction
FWD:CloudSec Europe 2026 is a non-profit conference dedicated to cloud security, bringing together practitioners for candid discussions about securing cloud environments across major platforms. Scheduled for 7–8 September 2026 at the Park Plaza Victoria in London, the event targets security engineers, architects, and technical leaders seeking practical insights beyond typical vendor-driven narratives. With cloud adoption continuing to accelerate and threat actors increasingly targeting misconfigured infrastructure, identity systems, and container workloads, the conference addresses a growing need for honest peer-to-peer knowledge exchange on both offensive and defensive techniques.
About FWD:CloudSec Europe
Organised by the Forward CloudSec Association, a volunteer-run non-profit, FWD:CloudSec Europe distinguishes itself from commercial security conferences through its practitioner-first approach. The event prioritises open dialogue about the realities of cloud security work, including the limitations of native security features and the gaps between vendor marketing and operational experience. This structure allows for discussions that might not fit comfortably into sponsored presentation slots at traditional industry events.
The two-day programme is designed to foster community building alongside technical education. Rather than focusing on product demonstrations, sessions centre on research findings, comparative analysis of security strategies, and the practical challenges that security teams encounter when defending cloud workloads at scale.
Cloud Security Challenges Under Discussion
The conference agenda addresses several persistent challenges facing cloud security teams. Attack and defence research forms a core theme, with sessions examining how adversaries exploit cloud-specific vulnerabilities and how defenders can detect and respond to these techniques. This includes analysis of identity and access management weaknesses, privilege escalation paths, and lateral movement within cloud environments.
Equally important is the examination of security control limitations. Cloud providers offer extensive native security tooling, but practitioners frequently encounter gaps between documented capabilities and real-world effectiveness. FWD:CloudSec provides a forum for discussing these limitations openly, helping attendees make informed decisions about where to supplement native controls with third-party solutions or custom tooling.
The event also facilitates comparative analysis across platforms. With most enterprises now operating in multi-cloud environments spanning AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, understanding the security model differences between providers has become essential. Sessions explore how security strategies must adapt to each platform’s architecture and where common approaches can be applied consistently.
Industry Context
Cloud security has matured significantly as organisations have moved beyond initial migration phases into optimisation and governance. However, this maturity has brought new complexity. Container orchestration, serverless computing, and infrastructure-as-code have expanded the attack surface while simultaneously creating new categories of misconfiguration risk. Security teams must now defend ephemeral workloads, manage identity across federated systems, and maintain visibility into environments that change continuously.
Regulatory pressure has also intensified, with frameworks increasingly requiring demonstrable cloud security controls and incident response capabilities. Practitioners need to balance compliance requirements with operational security, often working within constrained budgets and competing priorities.
Who Should Attend
FWD:CloudSec Europe is designed for technical professionals actively working in cloud security. Security engineers and architects responsible for designing and implementing cloud defences will find practical insights applicable to their daily work. CISOs and security leaders can benchmark their strategies against peer organisations and gain visibility into emerging threats. DevSecOps teams focused on embedding security into development pipelines will benefit from discussions on automation and tooling integration.
The event draws attendees from enterprises with significant cloud footprints, cloud-native organisations, security consultancies, and technology vendors. The common thread is hands-on experience with cloud security challenges and an interest in learning from others facing similar problems.
Sponsors and Community Support
The conference receives support from organisations across the cloud security ecosystem, including Wiz, Datadog, Intruder, Sysdig, Prowler, Aikido Security, Oligo Security, Tracebit, and the major cloud providers themselves—Google Cloud, Microsoft, and AWS. This broad sponsorship base reflects the event’s platform-agnostic approach and its relevance to practitioners regardless of their primary cloud environment.