A/76/187 In September 2020, the Federal Council adopted the new Digital Switzerland Strategy. 6 It identifies a number of action fields for cooperation among government, academia, the private sector and civil society in order to shape the digital transformation of our society to the benefit of everyone in Switzerland and to ensure that the opportunities it presents are available to all. In March 2021, the Federal Department of Defence adopted its Cyber Defence Strategy 2021–2024. 7 The strategy is aimed at anticipation and early detection of cyberthreats and malicious activity, prevention and attribution of cyberincidents targeting Swiss interests and education and training of civilian and military staff, as well as the cyberresilience of critical infrastructures. With regard to the protection of critical infrastructures, Switzerland pursues a decentralized approach. The mandate pertaining to the protection of critical infrastructures is assigned to various Federal Departments and Offices such as the Federal Office for Civil Protection, the Federal Office for National Economic Supply and the Federal Intelligence Service and is therefore not limited to one agency. Since the adoption of the National Strategies for the Protection of Switzerland against Cyber Risks, capacities designed to attribute malicious cyberactivities to perpetrators have been further developed. The identification of perpetrators is a holistic approach that includes the analysis of technical characteristics of a cyberincident, takes into account the geopolitical context and uses the entire intelligence spectrum to obtain relevant information. Switzerland has defined an inter-agency standardized process to attribute publicly (political attribution) a cyberincident that poses a threat to Switzerland’s national security. The criteria for a legal attribution of a cyberincident according to international law form part of this assessment. In January 2019, Switzerland established a “Cyber Defence Campus” 8 that undertakes research to anticipate and monitor possible threats stemming from technologically driven developments, proposes solutions and trains cyberexperts. The Campus brings together experts from the Federal Office for Defence Procurement, industry and research institutions. With respect to outreach and engagement with the private sector and academia, Switzerland fosters various initiatives. For example, in order to counter espionage and proliferation activities, the Federal Intelligence Service has used, since 2004, its prevention and awareness campaign programme “Prophylax” to advise companies, universities and research institutes on possible preventive measures to identify and respond to illegal espionage and proliferation activities. Content of the concepts mentioned in the reports of the Group of Governmental Experts Regarding threat assessment, malicious cyberactivities directly targeting critical infrastructures can cause severe damage and have a negative impact on the functioning of essential services, such as health care. In recent years, se veral Swiss federal agencies and private companies have been victims of State-sponsored malicious cyberactivities (cyberespionage). The ultimate goal of these malicious cyberactivities is generally to gain economic, political and military advantages. In th e course of 2020, Swiss critical infrastructures were affected mainly by financially motivated attacks. In the future, Switzerland expects an increase in ransomware attacks by criminal groups as well as cyberoperations conducted, sponsored or __________________ 6 7 8 21-10045 Available at www.digitaldialog.swiss/en/. Available at www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/66203.pdf . See www.ar.admin.ch/en/armasuisse-wissenschaft-und-technologie-w-t/cyber-defence_campus.html. 25/46