secret) are practically not applied, and sensitive data (personal, police or legal data) is managed on insufficiently protected systems. Already today, some cantons raise the awareness of their inhabitants in terms of prevention with specific campaigns on the dangers of the Internet, e.g. in schools. In the inter-cantonal context, Swiss Crime Prevention is making efforts along the same lines. Many cantons, however, are still inactive and rely in this area on the individual, uncoordinated initiatives of teachers or educational institutions. In addition, the ICT sector's programme offering is not used much because its existence is partly unknown. The cantons have management organisations at their disposal for responding to cyber attacks. These staff units regularly conduct exercises with partners (e.g. military commands of territorial regions) and are capable of dealing with the effects of all types of crisis. However, they are not specifically oriented towards cyber risks and would often be incapable of competently supporting the private sector and the population in the event of major cyber attacks. For implementing the national strategy for the protection of Switzerland against cyber risks, the cantons and the Confederation have at their disposal several instruments capable of making a valuable contribution in this area:  Switzerland's Haus der Kantone, with several inter-cantonal governmental and directors' conferences for justice, police, civil protection, education, finance, health, etc., and other institutions such as Swiss Crime Prevention  Swiss Security Network, currently being established, which will coordinate and streamline the security efforts of the cantons and the Confederation  Programme for the harmonisation of police information technology in order to reconcile the various applications and thus facilitate the work of the police  Cybercrime Coordination Unit Switzerland, jointly financed and run by the Confederation and the cantons, which monitors cyberspace and provides the cantons with information for launching police investigations  In addition to state agencies and bodies, there is the Swiss Police Association ICT, which networks the various police forces and the private sector's ICT directly and according to specialist area. As a platform, the congress it organises, the Swiss Police IT Congress (SPIK), makes an important contribution to the exchange of information on police IT and the management of cyber risks. 3.4 Population Regarding the private use of information and communication systems, individual users themselves are generally responsible for security precautions. In most cases, they use the security tools available on the end-user market (e.g. virus scanners and routers with integrated firewall, wireless local area network encryption). Measures to generally improve security on private ICT systems and individual training and information offerings are not coordinated and are not based on a common security standard. As part of their work, growing portions of the population use computers within companies or public authority units that have access to particularly sensitive data. To minimise risks, heightened awareness and safe conduct are generally needed, as is the case with other prevention activities. 22/42