The Dutch Cybersecurity Strategy 2022 – 2028 (NLCS) describes the government’s vision of a digital society and the position of government, businesses and citizens in it.
What is the NLCS?
Security in the digital world still falls a long way short of safety in the physical world. Anyone buying a car knows that the car will meet all kinds of safety and quality requirements. Likewise, the buyer will know exactly what is expected of him or her in order to drive it safely; a driving licence, no alcohol, annual MOT tests. This should also become standard practice for digital safety. In the Dutch Cyber Security Strategy, the Cabinet details its vision of a secure digital society and the role of government, businesses and citizens in it. In addition, the action plan contains some specific steps towards achieving this.
What is the government aiming to achieve?
Digital security to be a given for everyone. The vision of the future sees digital security at a level that corresponds to the threat and to the significance of the continuity, integrity and reliability of digital systems and processes. In addition, cyber threats are identified and addressed. Finally, society is resilient: there is sufficient redundancy and recoverability to deal with the consequences of cyber threats, such as outages.
How does the government intend to achieve its vision?
To realise the vision, goals have been defined along 4 principles.
- Increasing the digital resilience of government, businesses and socially committed organisations.
- Providing secure and innovative digital products and services in our nation.
- Countering digital threats from states and criminals.
- Sufficient Cyber Security Specialists, education on Digital Security and digital resilience of citizens.
How does the government intend to achieve these goals?
- Strengthen the system around digital security; for example, through a single national cyber security authority, created by merging the National Cybersecurity Centre, Digital Trust Centre and the Cyber Security Incident Response Team for Digital Service Providers.
- Clear and verifiable legislation and regulations, making non-committal measures a thing of the past.
- More visibility on threats enabling increased resilience.
Who is involved with the strategy?
For the realisation and implementation of the strategy, all ministries work together, including public and private partners.
