A/68/156/Add.1 Cyberspace offers opportunities, but also makes our societies more vulnerable. The cross-border nature of threats makes international cooperation crucial. Many measures will be effective only if implemented or coordinated internationally. In this connection, the Netherlands attaches great importance to public-private partnerships, building bridges through confidence-building measures and raising awareness of individual responsibility on the part of all information and communications technology users. Efforts taken at the national level to strengthen information security and promote international cooperation in the field The Netherlands is working nationally and internationally for a secure digital environment. At national level, the Netherlands implements the national cyber security strategy, called “Strength through Cooperation”. It will update this strategy in 2013 and publication is foreseen for the second half of 2013. The revised strategy will address the comprehensive view on cyberspace, taking into account the economic opportunities, openness and freedoms, and security. The Netherlands has the National Cyber Security Council to ensure a collaborative approach between the public sector, the private sector and academic and research institutions, and to advise high-level decision makers in the field of cyber security. It also has the National Cyber Security Centre to identify trends and threats and help manage incidents and crises. The task of the Centre is threefold: to conduct cyber threat analyses based on information from public and private parties; to react to cyber threats and incidents; and the operational coordination of information and communications technology crisis situations. The Centre includes the existing government computer emergency response team. Over the past year, it has expanded its capacity and established strong relationships with key informationsharing and analysis centres. The international annual conference organized by the National Cyber Security Centre brings together experts from Governments, private companies, law enforcement and technical experts to exchange best practices. The Netherlands has implemented a substantive set of measures to improve cyber security and is very willing to share the models it has used with third countries. An example of public-private partnership being used in the sector of nuclear security are the technical meetings that the Government organized in which the nuclear industry could indicate its needs in the field of information security. This information was used by the Government to improve the “design-based threat”. Keywords are “realistic” and “proportionality”. Internationally, the Netherlands contributes actively to the efforts of the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Internet Governance Forum and other partnerships. The Netherlands takes a positive view of the Joint Communication of the European Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, which calls for the creation of an open, free and secure cyberspace for the European Union and which has been endorsed by the European Council. The European Union is taking up this challenge with its international partners and organizations, the private sector and civil society. The Netherlands fully supports the European Union aims to ensure a secure Internet while promoting openness and freedom on the Internet, to encourage the development of confidence-building measures and norms of behaviour and to apply 16/24 13-47545