Information Commissioner Mojca Prelesnik said at the event in Ljubljana that the reaction in the Slovenian society to cyber crime threats had been late. "Let's hope that it was not too late," she said, calling for appropriate response to such threats.

Prelesnik stressed the need for cooperation between the key national and private institutions, for the establishment of clear rules through education, dialogue and reflection and for determination of joint objectives.

MP Matej Tonin, the chair of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Service Oversight Commission, also called for cooperation between the state and the private sector, saying that the state alone did not have enough resources.

Nataša Dolenc of the Government Office for the Protection of Classified Information said that the increasing dependence on information and communication systems brought both benefits and risks for the society.

She added that this field should thus be understood also from the aspect of national security threats. "It is not a question whether a real possibility of a cyber attack exists, but in what way we will respond."

Gorazd Božič, the boss of the national cybersecurity centre SI-CERT, said that the decision-makers at the national level lacked the vision of which course Slovenia should take. The state has operational capacity, but this is enough, because someone at the strategic level should connect all stakeholders, he added.

Božič stressed that the attitude of the state towards cybersecurity was connected with the financial support. No high-ranking politician will say that cybersecurity is not important, but their seriousness should be judged only by how much money and effort is invested in this field, he added.

While in 2007 Slovenia was among the countries which were providing help to Estonia after a cyber attack, the country has "fallen asleep" since and Estonia today is a role model to Slovenia in this field, Božič said.

Head of the Agency for Communication Networks and Services (AKOS) Tanja Muha meanwhile noted that the number of incidents on the internet in Slovenia was on an increase, with a majority of them being on-line fraud and phishing.