National Cyber Security Centre (United Kingdom)

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is an organisation of the United Kingdom Government that provides advice and support for the public and private sector in how to avoid computer security threats. Based in London, it became operational in October 2016, and its parent organisation is GCHQ.[2]

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
Agency overview
Formed2016 (2016)
HeadquartersVictoria, London, England, United Kingdom
Employees>1000[1]
Annual budget£1.9 billion (2017)[1]
Agency executives
  • Lindy Cameron, CEO
  • Dr Ian Levy, Technical Director
Parent agencyGovernment Communications Headquarters
Websitewww.ncsc.gov.uk

History

The NCSC absorbed and replaced CESG (the information security arm of GCHQ), the Centre for Cyber Assessment (CCA), Computer Emergency Response Team UK (CERT UK) and the cyber-related responsibilities of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI).[3] It built on earlier efforts of these organisations and the Cabinet Office to provide guidance on Information Assurance to the UK's wider private sector, such as the "10 Steps" guidance released in January 2015. In pre-launch announcements, the UK government stated that the NCSC would first work with the Bank of England to advise financial institutions on how to bolster online defences.[4]

The centre was first announced in November 2015 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. The existing Director General Cyber of GCHQ, Ciaran Martin, leads the new centre, and GCHQ's current Technical Director of Cyber Security, Dr Ian Levy, assumed the same role at the NCSC.[5] A detailed paper on the creation of the NCSC, including a description of its structure and future challenges, written by the then Director of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, who is widely credited with establishing the centre, was published by the Royal United Services Institute in February 2019[6].

The centre was dedicated by the Queen on 14 February 2017.[7][8][9] Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced an investment of £1.9 billion and an initiative to embed 100 people from industry into the NCSC on secondment.[10][11]

In April 2016, the Ministry of Defence announced that a Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) "to protect the MOD's cyberspace from malicious actors" with a budget of over £40 million will contribute to this initiative. It is located at MoD Corsham.[12][13]

In October 2017, technical director Ian Levy was targeted by email prankster James Linton with a fake industry event, however Levy correctly identified the unexpected headers and worked with him to put out a security blog about the incident.[14][15]

On 28 July 2020 Lindy Cameron, formerly director-general of the Northern Ireland Office, took over from Ciaran Martin as CEO.[16][17]

gollark: It's one of the xorshift ones
gollark: Do you have any bad things to say about the xoshiro128++ (P)RNG? Because potatOS uses that.
gollark: I should switch potatOS entirely over to the xorshift generator it has.
gollark: Possibly more so since compilers are clever, but not necessarily.
gollark: It could also be fast in C or Rust or whatever.

See also

References
  1. "Cyber security in the UK" (PDF). House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts. 15 May 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
  2. HM Government (1 November 2016). "National Cyber Security Strategy 2016-2021" (PDF). gov.uk. Retrieved 2 November 2016.
  3. "About us". National Cyber Security Centre. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
  4. Corera, Gordon (18 March 2016). "Bank of England to work with new cybersecurity body". BBC News. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  5. Jones, Sam (18 March 2016). "UK launches National Cyber Security Centre". Financial Times. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  6. "Organising a Government for Cyber: The Creation of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre". RUSI. 27 February 2019. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  7. "National Cyber Security Centre: Queen opens new HQ as business warned it is unprepared for attacks". ITV News. 14 February 2017. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  8. "Cybersecurity: Queen opens centre to protect against attacks". BBC. 14 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  9. "Director GCHQ speaks at the official opening of the National Cyber Security Centre | GCHQ Site". www.gchq.gov.uk. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  10. "Chancellor's speech at the National Cyber Security Centre opening". HM Treasury. 14 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  11. "Britain to enter 'new era of online opportunity'". NCSC. 13 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  12. "Defence Secretary announces £40m Cyber Security Operations Centre". Ministry of Defence. 1 April 2016. Retrieved 2 April 2016.
  13. Hammick, Murray (30 October 2018). "The Budget and Defence". The Military Times. London. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  14. Levy, Ian (30 October 2017). "The serious side of pranking". Retrieved 6 April 2020.
  15. Stokel-Walker, Chris (28 September 2017). "Revealed: The real identity of prankster king SINON_REBORN". Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  16. Williams, Oscar (28 July 2020). "NIO's Lindy Cameron to succeed Ciaran Martin as NCSC CEO". New Statesman. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  17. Sheridan, Danielle (28 July 2020). "Ex-diplomat to be next cyber security CEO". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
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