Nicole Matthöfer, President of the Cyber Security Agency of Baden-Württemberg, Thomas Strobl, Deputy Minister-President and Minister of the Interior of the State of Baden-Württemberg, and Claudia Plattner, President of the BSI, signed a cooperation agreement between the BSI and the State of Baden-Württemberg on 10 July to jointly strengthen cyber security. Source: BSI
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the state of Baden-Württemberg will be working even more closely together in the field of cyber security in future. A corresponding agreement was signed on 10 July at the Baden-Württemberg State Representation in Berlin by BSI President Claudia Plattner, Deputy Minister-President and Minister of the Interior of the State of Baden-Württemberg Thomas Strobl, and Nicole Matthöfer, President of the Cyber Security Agency Baden-Württemberg.
The agreement covers eight areas of cooperation, with a focus on targeted knowledge and information exchange. In addition to joint awareness-raising and training measures, advice on eavesdropping security from the BSI and support following IT security incidents, close professional networking is planned on key IT topics such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
BSI President Claudia Plattner: ‘Against the backdrop of the tense threat situation and possible impacts on digital infrastructures, the BSI has strengthened its detection mechanisms. Critical infrastructures in particular, but also municipal institutions, are increasingly becoming the target of cyber attacks. In order to adequately increase Germany’s resilience and protect the digital space more reliably from external influences, the federal and state governments must work together even more intensively than before.’
Thomas Strobl, Deputy Minister-President and Minister of the Interior, Digitalisation and Municipalities in Baden-Württemberg: “No country can tackle cyber security on its own – crime knows no borders, and cybercrime, cyber espionage and cyber sabotage certainly don’t. We must therefore join forces and pool our resources to combat the dangers on the internet effectively. One thing is clear: no one can do this alone. The close and trusting cooperation that has already been established between the state of Baden-Württemberg and the BSI in the past is an important factor. We want to further consolidate, expand and intensify this good cooperation through the cooperation agreement. This is a decisive step towards protecting the digital space even better and strengthening citizens’ trust in digitalisation.”
Nicole Matthöfer, President of the Baden-Württemberg Cybersecurity Agency: “Cybersecurity is not a solo effort and does not happen by itself. As a cybersecurity agency, we already support the state administration, authorities and municipalities in Baden-Württemberg with a comprehensive package. Nevertheless, we are continuing to expand our portfolio of services in a targeted manner, as we did recently with the Cyber Security Check for SMEs. I see the strength of this joint effort in the opportunity to benefit from the federal government’s expertise while enriching it with our expertise and experience gained from our work on the ground.”
Cooperation agreements structure the collaboration in accordance with the constitutional framework.
With the support of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), the BSI will continue to deepen its cooperation with the federal states in a timely and practical manner: Initial concrete solutions have already been discussed in consultations on the margins of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of the Interior and Senate Ministers of the Interior of the Federal States (IMK) and in the German IT Planning Council. In addition to emergency and crisis exercises and the joint use of tools for attack detection, efforts are focusing on a holistic cyber situation picture for Germany.
