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UK National Cyber Security Centre ( @NCSC) has published its fourth annual review today. https://twitter.com/NCSC/status/1323570369027067904
Clear flagging of major issues in its chapter headings: 1) coronavirus - responding to the pandemic; 2) defending democracy; 3) building a resilient nation.
Other chapters on: proactive engagement; defending the digital homeland; driving cyber skills and innovation; and international influence. All topics that not only reflect current work but also major themes of the national cyber security strategy.
Since 2018, the annual NCSC report has had a ministerial foreword written by a Cabinet Office minister. (In 2017, it was written by the NCSC CEO.) This year it's Paymaster General Penny Mordaunt. This reflects Cabinet Office's coordination role for cyber across government.
Top headline figure this year is unsurprisingly about Covid: 'More than 200 of the 723 incidents the NCSC handled this
year related to coronavirus and we have deployed experts to support the health sector, including NHS Trusts, through
cyber incidents they have faced.'
year related to coronavirus and we have deployed experts to support the health sector, including NHS Trusts, through
cyber incidents they have faced.'
Interesting insight into the scale of the problem: the Suspicious Email Reporting Service received 'more than 2.3 million reports of malicious emails...flagged by the British public. Many of the 22,000 malicious URLs taken down as a result related to coronavirus scams'.
Prominent in the CEO's intro: cyber education & diversity efforts: 'A record number of young people...introduced to cyber through a portfolio of skills programmes, including one which saw a 60% rise in girls applying for the summer courses, which were all delivered remotely.'
There's a good timeline (pp.10-13) and infographic (pp.14-15) highlighting key themes and achievements across 2019-20, indicating the breadth of NCSC's activities.
As part of its Covid response NCSC extended Active Cyber Defence (ACD), 'including Web Check, Mail Check and protective DNS, to 235 front-line health bodies across the UK, including NHS Trusts'. For more on ACD, see this report by @tcstvns et al: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/uk-active-cyber-defence.pdf
Covid was a burning platform to improve NHS cyber security: 'a new back-up service, pioneering discovery tradecraft and deploying analysts to look at NHS threat data...facilitated by...[DHSC] signing a “Direction” giving the NCSC consent to check the security of NHS IT systems.'
Another recurring theme in the report is public-private partnerships and collaboration, e.g. with Netcraft in active cyber defence (p.18) or the i100 secondments and threat intelligence information sharing in protecting critical national infrastructure (p.21).
A nice detail about the longevity of paper-based methods: NCSC 'replaced the long-standing method of producing cryptographic keys on punched paper tape with a more efficient capability for producing and distributing keys in an electronic, highly secure format' (p.46).
As well as working with UK defence on cyber security, NCSC contributes to 'the UK's thought leadership in NATO,' including by leading 'development of NATO’s action plan to protect its secure communications against the threat from future quantum computing' (p.47).
Short quotation in the defence and security section from the Commander of UK Strategic Command, describing cyber as 'the most active domain,' (also p.47) though perhaps not intended as an echo of US-style 'persistent engagement' theory and practice.
This report does a good job communicating the breadth of @NCSC work: from cyber security for the nuclear deterrent and joint strike fighter (pp.47-48) to countering celebrity scams and improving the security of smart cameras and baby monitors (pp.52-54).
You won't find references to 'fusion doctrine' or 'whole of system', but those ideas are implicit in the report: 'Cyber security is a team sport...Over the last 12 months government, industry and the general public came together to enhance their shared cyber security' (p.63).
Why is 'high volume, low-sophistication' cyber crime so persistent? 'In 2019, it was reported that 23.2 million
hacking victims had “123456” as their password'. The Cyber Aware campaign is designed to address this by enhancing the baseline of cyber security good practice (p.64).
hacking victims had “123456” as their password'. The Cyber Aware campaign is designed to address this by enhancing the baseline of cyber security good practice (p.64).
This year was also the first time NCSC issued guidance for organisations considering purchase of cyber insurance (p.71).
Some more interesting stats throughout the report: '10% rise in the number of incidents (723 v 658), and 33% increase in the number of victims (<1200 v c900) this year compared to last' (p.83).
Also a three-fold rise in the number of ransomware incidents handled by NCSC over this reporting year (p.83).
NCSC also continues to squeeze phishing attacks, part of its wider active cyber defence programme: 'UK share of visible global phishing attacks further reduced to 1.27 % (from 2.1% last year)' (p.98).
On cyber security diplomacy: Between Sep 2019
and Mar 2020: 'NCSC welcomed delegations from more than 20 different countries, and NCSC representatives visited a similar number for bilateral and multilateral engagements, and participated in cyber security conferences' (p.117).
and Mar 2020: 'NCSC welcomed delegations from more than 20 different countries, and NCSC representatives visited a similar number for bilateral and multilateral engagements, and participated in cyber security conferences' (p.117).
