Results of the GOVCERT.NL project
The mission and goals of GOVCERT.NL
The way your organisation is formed depends greatly on its goal. The goal of GOVCERT.NL is:
" To offer support to Dutch government, citizens and SME's on the prevention and response
to ICT-related Security Incidents"
Our mission in 2005 has slightly changed into:
- Endorsing the level of Information security within the whole Government by delivering support.
- Informing, alerting and advising the Government concerning ICT vulnerabilities on a 24x7 basis.
- Providing an ICT security knowledge centre for the whole Government.
This mission indicates that we:
- Work for Dutch government as a whole
- Prevent incidents where possible
- Respond to incidents
This mission leads to the goals and actions listed below:
- First goal: effective prevention
- 1.12 Information gathering
- 1.13 Information sharing
- 1.14 Knowledge broker
- 1.15 Mutual expertise pool
- 1.16 Bringing people together and sharing information.
- 1.17 Helping other CSIRTS, " the community"
- 1.18 Researching trends and carrying out analyses
- 1.19 Self-learning organisation
- Second goal: effective response
- 1.20 Incident handling procedures
- 1.21 Tools and workflow
- 1.22 Technical and organisational questions (know your constituency)
- 1.23 Security scan
The organisation of GOVCERT.NL
Our current organisation consists of 11 people, which can be increased by adding temporary hired project members. The functions in our organisation are:
- 1 General manager, head of GOVCERT.NL, overall responsibility
- 1 Manager Technical Team, operational responsibilities
- 1 Office manager, secretary+
- 1 Programme Secretary, financial officer, contracts and management reports
- 1 Communication consultant, internal and external communication, awareness campaigns and communication strategy
- 6 Technical Specialists, operational, general knowledge and specialisation on several topics. (Networking, Unix, Linux, Microsoft, Internet Technology, programming, etc.)
See 'Helpful Information' for all the consultant function profiles.

Illustration: Organisational model of GOVCERT.NL
With this organisation we are able to deliver:
- 24x7 Incident Handling and Response
- Up to the minute Alerts
- Advice
- Knowledge Centre on ICT Security
GOVCERT.NL Commissionaires
- The Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations for GOVCERT.NL
- The Ministry of Economic Affairs for the public alerting service.
- ICTU: ICT implementation organisation of the Dutch Government. Almost all ICT related projects are implemented by ICTU. The main purpose is to offer flexibility and a clear way of financing projects.

Illustration: Commissionaires of GOVCERT.NL
Organisational model for information gathering
The model below shows the organisation of the process for gathering information from public information and our international CSIRT network, as well as the steps that have to be taken to come to an output, our advisory and/or an alert.

Illustration: Simplified information flowchart
Management style
The management style when GOVCERT.NL started was very entrepreneurial. This style enables the creation of new products, stimulates exploration and creates (claims) a space for the new organisation. After about two years, the entrepreneurial spirit needs to be turned into a more quality driven management style in order to ensure the continuity of the newly built organisation. This is the phase GOVCERT.NL is in 2005.
What is still important for our organisation is that we strive to create a culture where everyone can make a mistake and feel comfortable enough to share it and learn from each other. Self-criticism is important to keep the organisation sharp and keep the focus on constituents and delivered services. Frequently asking for feedback also helps us to improve our internal processes and the service to our constituents, as well as guaranteeing good quality on a day-by-day basis.
The function profile of our employees
As GOVCERT.NL we expect much from our employees, as stated in our function profile:
- Flexibility, creativity and team spirit, must react independently and within the team to unexpected situations.
- Effective decision makers who can anticipate adequate personal time management in complex and stressful situations.
- Strong analytical capacity,
You are dealing with a massive load of information and you need to be able to switch from overview level to a deep technical level when needed.
- Good spoken and written skills (Dutch / English).
- Good skills to filter information (technical) by relevance to the target group and prepare it for distribution to the target group.
You need a good understanding of Internet technologies to disseminate information on risk and impact.
- Skill to make (technical) information accessible to less technical persons. Writing for the alerting service requires an almost non-technical technical language, presentations and talking to customers on different levels also requires the skill to explain difficult issues as simply as possible.
- Skill to handle integrity and confidentiality procedures,
For this job an A-screening is required and also a structured awareness of what to say or not to say is essential.
- Have a feeling for official and administrative proportions within the government. Because we are a governmental organisation, this has its own dynamics.