The Israel Electric Company (IEC) signed a memorandum of understanding for cyber cooperation with the state-owned Polish Electricity Company (PSE) responsible for supplying electricity to Poland’s nearly 40 million people.

As a result of keen interest by PSE in Israeli cyber technologies, a delegation headed by CEO Eryk Kłossowski came to Israel at the end of January on a visit arranged by the commercial attaché of Israel’s Ministry of Economy and Industry in Poland and the cyber unit at the Israel Export Institute.

“We gain an experienced partner, effective in fighting cybercrime. This is extremely important at a time when cyber-criminals and cyber-terrorists develop cooperation among themselves and create more and more advanced tools of attacks,” said Klossowski.

Added IEC Vice President Yossi Shank: “Over the years we have accumulated extensive experience in critical infrastructure protection, and we will be happy to share this knowledge, mainly in the framework of business entrepreneurship abroad.”

The IEC successfully warded off a prolonged attempted cyber-attack from April 2016 until at least February 2017.

While in Israel, the PSE delegation visited the Cybertech conference in Tel Aviv, Israel’s National Cyber Bureau and the CyberBit simulator in Ra’anana, and met with about a dozen Israeli cybersecurity companies.

“In the past two years, we have witnessed an increase in requests from Polish and private companies for Israeli cyber technologies and cooperation on the subject,” said Shir Slutzky, commercial attaché of the Ministry of Economy and Industry in Poland.

“In the year 2017, together with the Israel Export Institute, we organized several visits and business delegations from Poland to Israel, and vice versa.” The ministry also handles requests from Israeli companies to make relevant connections in the Polish market.

PSE’s computer emergency response team, started at the end of 2016 to help maintain cybersecurity, cooperates with its counterparts in the United States and Norway.