Italy’s National Cybersecurity Agency has granted Italian companies that purchase cybersecurity technologies or systems from Israel an additional eight points in the evaluation of public tenders, giving them a clear advantage over competitors in a sector that has become strategically important for the Italian state. Economists say this official incentive steers the market toward suppliers from regions deemed reliable, including Israel.
These incentives, which came into effect earlier this month, are not limited to cooperation with Israel. They also apply to companies importing digital products from NATO member states, as well as from a group of partner nations such as Australia, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, and Switzerland.
Yet in May 2024, the Italian government had taken the opposite approach by introducing a bill that restricted preferential incentives and bonuses to companies cooperating exclusively with European Union or NATO countries—effectively excluding Israel.
However, recent amendments to the regulations of the National Cybersecurity Agency have restored Israel’s status as a key technological partner, even though cooperation between the two countries has not been free of tensions.
The so-called “Paragon affair” sparked intense controversy last February within Italian political and media circles. It was revealed that private conversations involving journalists, activists, and business figures in Italy had been spied on using “Gravity,” a software developed by the Israeli company Paragon Solutions.
In June, the Italian parliamentary security committee (Copasir) announced the definitive termination of its contract with the company, while investigations continue to determine who was responsible for the surveillance operation.
At the European level, the technological partnership between Rome and Tel Aviv also came under criticism after the European Commission proposed last July to suspend Israel’s participation in the “Horizon” programme, which has a budget of around €95 billion to support research and innovation.
The Commission based its proposal on clauses in the EU–Israel agreement linking scientific cooperation to compliance with human rights standards.
However, the initiative failed to secure the required qualified majority, with Italy and Germany opposing it on the grounds that excluding Israel would deprive the country of research investments estimated at nearly €200 million.
A report by the Italian cybersecurity foundation Clusit further revealed that cyberattacks targeting Italian military and government entities increased by 600 percent in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period the previous year.
Italy also accounted for 10.2 percent of all global cyberattacks during the first six months of the year, up from just 3.4 percent in 2021.
What's happening in Tunisia?
Subscribe to our Youtube channel for updates.
