1. The Netherlands has
adequate digital
capabilities to detect,
mitigate and respond
decisively to cyber
threats
To respond effectively to the growing digital threat,
government bodies and private organisations in the
Netherlands must cooperate and have appropriate
capacities and resources. A number of these
organisations are still developing those capacities and
they are at various levels of maturity. While some (larger)
businesses and organisations are arranging their own
security operations center or computer crisis team, other
(smaller) businesses or organisations are only just or not
sufficiently aware of digital risks. Protection of their own
digital systems and information by these public and
private parties is not yet a given and basic security
regulations have not yet been implemented .
Sufficient capabilities also include the capacity of security
organisations which must be able to carry out their tasks
for national security in the digital as well as the physical
domains. This is closely tied-in with the offensive
capabilities of Defence, which are covered under
Ambition 2.
There is an urgent need to build up capabilities, for more
and better tailor-made information about digital threats,
which is available to government bodies and private
organisations more swiftly and for perspective for action
for mitigating those threats. The exchange of
information between organisations and businesses in
the Netherlands has improved greatly in recent years as a
result of cooperation on incidents or because parties
have come to know each other and started trusting each
other. Although this is a step in the right direction, it still
does not provide sufficient guarantees that we can
address digital threats now and in the future. The next
step is to structurally guarantee the exchange of
information and existing cooperation while at the same
time expand the range, for instance by promoting crosssector analyses. There is a need to improve the detection
and response capabilities of government organisations
and providers of critical services. By doing so, we will
increase the digital capabilities of these parties as a
whole. We must adopt a practice in which customers and
suppliers encourage each other to arrange their digital
security. In this way, we will work towards a cyber
ecosystem in which all parties build up capacities and
A cyber secure Netherlands National Cyber Security Agenda | 19