Croatia and Israel will cooperate much closer in combating cyber attacks after a bilateral agreement on cyber security was signed in Tel Aviv on Thursday by Croatia's Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic and Yigal Unna, the Chief Executive Director of the Directorate's Cyber Technologies Unit at Israel's Ministry of Public Security.

In a statement for Croatia’s state agency Hina, Unna underscored that it was a great honour to sign this “historic agreement” on cyber security which is one of the fundamental threats. Cooperation is a must for all countries that share the same values, according to the Israeli official.

We are faced with growing threats and we have to stick together, Unna said and added that Croatia and Israel now have a way for our two countries to also protect Europe from cyber threats. I would hope for a lot of activities and programmes that we will work on together so that we can achieve cyber security, Unna said.

Bozinovic too underscored that the institution the agreement was signed with is one of the leading agencies of its kind in the world.

“Our lives are moving more and more into the digital sphere and that is why it is necessary to protect what we have at our disposal and what we are dealing with today and Israel is one of the leading countries in the world in that regard,” Bozinovic told Hina.

“This is a big step for us and a great honour. We look forward to future cooperation in protecting the interests of our countries and peoples,” he added.

The Interior Ministry underlined the number, seriousness and international nature of cyber attacks which requires growing effort and innovativeness from countries but also cooperation between countries. Cooperation on the national, regional and international level is essential for proper functioning and security in a digital environment and the ministry is convinced that this agreement will contribute to the cyber security of Croati and of its citizens and institutions.

All our experiences are also yours, Unna said, who presented the work of his agency prior to signing the agreement.

The national cyber unit is directly responsible to the prime minister and is ranked along with other security institutions such as intelligence services.

The agency provides incident handling services and guidance for all civilian entities as well as all critical infrastructures in the Israeli economy, and works towards increasing the resilience of the civilian cyber space.