Italy has several Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) covering the public and private sectors as well as citizens.

The Italian national CERT - CERT Nazionale (Italian; https://www.certnazionale.it/chi-siamo/) is based on a public-private collaboration on cybersecurity for citizens and companies. It is responsible for raising awareness, and helping to prevent and coordinate cyber incidents on a large scale.

GARR-CERT provides support for the Italian Academic and Research Network, working to reduce the risk of computer security incidents. (Italian: https://www.cert.garr.it/; English: https://www.cert.garr.it/en/).

CERT PA (part of the government agency for Digital Italy) is responsible for computer security incidents in public administration. (Italian: www.cert-pa.it/).

CERT Posteitaliane is a private structure within the Poste Italiane Group, providing services for security specialists, large organisations, clients, and consumers. (Italian: https://www.picert.it/; English: https://www.picert.it/en/).

There are no official initiatives though several independent associations exist that deal with cybersecurity.

CLUSIT (Italian) is a cluster of IT associations tasked with helping to spread a cyber security culture in companies, public administrations and citizens. It also contributes to formulating laws and regulations on cyber security at local and national level. It provides inputs to training programmes and ICT professional certifications and also promotes the use of technologies and methodologies that improve cyber security at all levels of society. Its 2016 annual report (Italian), Il Rapporto Clusit 2017 sulla sicurezza ICT in Italia, is the outcome of a collaboration between representatives from the public and private sector, sharing data, insights and experiences. IDC is a research partner of the report.

Italy has officially recognised national or sector-specific educational and professional training programs for raising awareness with the general public, promoting cybersecurity courses in higher education and promoting certification of professionals through the National CERT and CNAIPIC (National Anti-Crime Computer Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection).

Italy has introduced an innovative reference model that represents an accelerator of the National Strategic Plan for Cyber Security at which all companies and government agencies are invited to attend. The reference model draws on the American NIST Framework (National Institute of Standards and Technology) for the improvement of critical infrastructure cyber security.

The current model is not, however, exhaustive as it does not emphasise preventive measure dynamic attacks with countermeasures in industrial espionage contexts to companies and research centres. What is required is a communication and research process involving the civil and military intelligence structures (DIS, AISI, AISE) both on national scenarios both on transnational scenarios. This involvement needs to reference standards to support specific protocols between public and private organisations and intelligence structures in the event of terrorist attacks or industrial espionage or simply redefining induced in crisis scenarios of new geopolitical boundaries in Italian strategic sectors such as: research, defence, energy, telecommunications, agribusiness, tourism, high fashion.