I assume not many of our international guests here – maybe not even our German ones – know the city of Schwerte in North Rhine-Westphalia, just a few kilometers away from Dortmund.

This is a pity.

Schwerte is an old Hanseatic city with historic half-timbered houses, a beautiful church dating back to the 11^th century, and many other attractions definitely worth a visit.

But a few weeks ago, Schwerte received international attention also in quite another way.

Early March this year, Schwerte’s municipal utilities, which provide water, gas and electricity to more than 40,000 people, had to inform their customers that their private data – contact information, contract details, financial transactions etc. – had been stolen and published online.

Essential services were not directly affected, but the attackers also hit the electronic systems of Schwerte’s municipal administration.

All public services provided online – applications for driving licenses, passports and other official documents, as well as the entire electronic communication of the city's administration – were interrupted for several days.

This attack might not have been the most severe cyberattack in 2025 so far, but it has directly affected the life of our citizens. And it’s just one incident amongst many others – affecting telecom companies from South Africa, the international car rental agency Hertz or the Port of Seattle.

And the list is growing day by day.

In the first months of 2025 we saw an increase of cyberattacks against German companies, state institutions and infrastructure by more than 55% compared to 2024.

Last year an astonishing number of eight out of ten German companies reported, they have already been victims of data theft, virtual espionage or acts of online sabotage.

These cyber acts have caused the German economy damages of 180 billion Euros in 2024.

This number is astonishing.

And it underlines some basic facts we have to acknowledge:

Cyberattacks can hit every one of us –

as customers paying our water bills online,

as citizens participating in democratic elections, whose integrity and credibility is threatened,

as members of parliament, whose e-mail accounts are flooded with thousands of spam emails, as it happened with my own parliamentary office just last week.

Therefore, cyberattacks have become an existential threat, not only to more tech-friendly segments of our societies, but to our overall security, our freedom, and our prosperity.

And: Cyberattacks don’t stop at borders.

Cyber criminals, online terrorists and rogue [ro-ug] states, who use the cybersphere to attack us, act internationally.

And since our economies, our supply chains, our data systems are inextricably connected, an attack against one of us is essentially an attack against all of us.

This is why we have to act.

This is why we are here today.

To further advance global cooperation against one of the most pressing security threats of our time.

To make clear to those hiding behind fake accounts and fancy online nick names:

You are not invisible.

We know how to protect ourselves.

We will invest further in our capacities to defend our free and democratic societies. Nationally – and in close cooperation and solidarity with you, with our international partners.

Our enemies are learning from each other.

They copy techniques and patterns used successfully elsewhere. They gather information about security leaks and other weaknesses of our communication systems.

So we have to do the same.

In Germany our security agencies and relevant ministries developed – with the Federal Foreign Office as lead-institution – a comprehensive procedure to attributecyberattacks directed by states to the actors and countries responsible.

We are determined to take action against those behind cyberattacks, to identify them, make them public if possible and take the necessary countermeasures and sanctions against them.

We have applied this attribution procedure in practice and received a lot of support from our international partners.

And we are working now on making this procedure still quicker and more effective and to foster the development of similar capabilities in multilateral frameworks like EU and NATO.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

our enemies are extremely sophisticated in detecting our weaknesses and adapt their methods accordingly to serve their political interests.

It is no coincidence that Ukraine has experienced a dramatic increase of cyberattacks since Russia started its war of aggression against the country in February 2022.

Ukraine has been hit continuously by a vast number of cyberattacks every day over the course of the war – and it even started before.

And it is also no coincidence that since then also cyberattacks in the Western Balkans which Russia considers another frontline in its battle against our freedom and our democracies, have exploded.

As I said before – when we defend ourselves against cyberattacks, it is imperative to understand that we will only be safe together;

So, we should consider – and we do consider – attacks against our friends and partners in the digital realm as a threat to our own security.

Similarly, as we consider, for example in the framework of NATO, a conventional attack against one of us as an attack against all of us.

We support our friends and partners to improve their defense capacities and also our mutual cooperation, as we do it against conventional attacks as well.

We will continue to support Ukraine against the Russian aggression. To defend herself against indiscriminate Russian air attacks, which hit Ukrainian cities and villages on a daily basis.

But also, to defend herself against the myriads of electronic attacks targeting power plants, railway systems, banking systems, but also private phones and computers of Ukrainian citizens.

We support Ukraine’s efforts to build up autonomous and reliable communication structures, which are protected against political interference or technical sabotage.

And we support the Balkan states to strengthen their cyber defense capacities as well, together with their mutual support and regional cooperation.

Just a few weeks ago, Germany facilitated a first meeting of several Balkan states in the framework of the newly established “Cyber Diplomacy Network for the Western Balkans.”

Our goal is to enhance cooperation amongst these states and strengthen their ties with multilateral institutions like the United Nations, the European Union, NATO or OSCE, which are also engaged in containing cyber threats and upholding the rules of international law in the cyber realm.

And thereby building trust among nations, which may have disputes in other fields.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

attribution of cyberattacks, international cooperation and capacity building are indispensable tools to make our societies, our democratic institutions, our economies, more resilient.

And we are very much looking forward to the exchange with you, our friends and partners from other governments and ministries, academia and civil society, today.

We want to share experiences, develop mechanisms for swift and comprehensive exchange of information about cyber incidents and advance a mutual understanding of the threats we are facing all together.

But this will not be enough.

We are confronted with attacks not employing tanks, airplanes or actual boots on the ground.

But the impact of cyberattacks already equals the range of destruction caused by terror attacks or conventional warfare in the “real world”.

So our defense against cyberattacks has to become “real” as well.

What we need are the capacities, the political will and the legal framework for an active cyber defense.

A cyber defense that not only reacts and contains outside aggression.

But that also has the abilities to prevent criminals, terrorists and rogue states from future attacks.

By actively limiting their abilities to act.

By interrupting ongoing attacks before they unleash their full destructive force.

By making attacks against us and our partners too costly and too risky to be an attractive tool.

In the coalition agreement for our new government, we agreed to advance our capacities for active cyber defense.

We need, in any case, a cyber defense architecture made from one piece.

Police agencies on a local, regional and federal level,

the ministries of defense, the interior, of digital and foreign affairs,

our Bundesländer or states,

the cyber security units of private companies and public enterprises,

internet start-ups and computer science departments of our universities –

they all have to work together closely to address this threat.

Since neither the city of Schwerte nor the Federal Foreign Office are able to provide effective cyber security on their own.

And the same is true for all nation-states, big and small.

But we are not defenseless if we work together.

If we pay the same attention to cyber threats as we do to conventional challenges of our security.

And start to provide the necessary resources to defend ourselves also here.

I welcome you once again to this conference and wish all of us fruitful exchanges.

Thank you!