Draghi announces new investments in cybersecurity

Mario Draghi's preface to the National Cybersecurity Strategy 2022-2026 clearly speaks of greater investments in cybersecurity. In a decade characterized by the worsening of digital crimes and new global balances, Italy too seems to have begun to deal seriously with digital transformation. There have been many projects undertaken over the past two years to simplify public administration and make it more accessible from the web. The pandemic has probably acted as an accelerator, at the same time highlighting the many and serious security gaps surrounding us. Here are the reasons for the National Cybersecurity Strategy 2022-2026, presented in recent days by the Delegated Authority for the security of the Republic, Franco Gabrielli and by the director of the National Agency, Roberto Baldoni.

Draghi's strategy and new investments in cybersecurity

There are 82 objectives to be achieved by 2026 with the new strategy drawn up by the National Cybersecurity Agency . Goals that reflect five major challenges that will determine the digital scenario in the coming years:

• Ensure a cyber resilient digital transition of the Public Administration (PA) and of the productive fabric
• Anticipating the evolution of the cyber threat
• Tackling online disinformation in the broader context of the so-called hybrid threat
• Cyber ​​crisis management
• National and European strategic autonomy in the digital sector

To achieve its goals, the Agency has hypothesized to act in three ways: to protect national assets, respond to any threats or accidents and develop infrastructures but above all collective knowledge on the subject. As we often find ourselves reiterating in our articles, the weak link in the chain is the human being. Acting on the population, increasing the minimum knowledge on safety, is one of the main points on which to insist and probably among the most difficult .

Quite often, digital security is seen as something distant and only for specialists. Instead, the world we live in is increasingly technology-driven and we need each of us to do our part to stay safe and avoid becoming part of larger attacks.

In the preface to the Strategy, the Prime Minister Mario Draghi wrote:

"It is our intention to intensify technological development projects to achieve an adequate level of strategic autonomy in the" cybersecurity "sector and thus guarantee our digital sovereignty. To do so, it will be crucial to allocate adequate funds, continuously".

President of the Council of Ministers

On the investment front, we are talking about about 1.2% of the national gross total each year to be dedicated entirely to the sector, in addition to the resources coming from the various European calls.

Digital sovereignty: what we are talking about

In the document presented, the term digital sovereignty often recurs but it must not be interpreted with a political meaning. When we talk about digital sovereignty, we refer to the country's ability to manage the technological world . On the one hand, this means being able to possess the adequate technologies to face new problems and at the same time have the necessary skills in terms of workforce.

To explain the concept in simpler terms, if Italy, to solve a problem, has to rely only on engineers of a foreign company and on technological tools of that company, it is clear that it does not possess sovereignty in that area. .

To increase our skills it is necessary to invest in the training of young people and know how to keep them so that they become the solid basis of knowledge on which to create digital development models. Furthermore, there is no development if the technologies are outdated and, therefore, it is necessary to always search for new solutions to the still unsolved problems.

The road is probably still long but the first steps are in the right direction. Only in the years to come will we be able to evaluate the impacts of these investments and understand if they have produced the desired results.

The Draghi article announces new investments in cybersecurity was written on: Tech CuE | Close-up Engineering .