The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is a government organization that helps protect the public and private sector from cyber threats and incidents. The NCSC’s target is to make the UK the safest place to live and work online.
Whether it be the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure, a government department, the wider public sector, industry, SMEs or the general public, the NCSC sets out to be the one stop shop for cyber related matters. It aims to understand the cyber security landscape, pool sources of expertise and distil that knowledge into clear and accessible guidelines for anyone in the UK who needs help or advice. Future newsletters will hone-in on some of this valuable good practice guidance.
Its parent agency, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) celebrated its centenary in November last year (2019), yet it was only four years ago in October 2016 that top security groups and response teams came together under one roof to create the NCSC. Their vision continues to provide “a hub of world-class, user-friendly expertise for businesses and individuals”
The UK’s National Cyber Security Strategy sets out an objective for the NCSC to be open to organisations of all sizes to help mitigate their Cyber Security risks. Cyber Essentials is a UK Government-backed, industry-supported scheme which is jointly owned by NCSC and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The scheme helps demonstrate organisations have implemented measures to secure themselves against the most common online threats. In that regard, the Cyber Essentials scheme makes an important contribution towards achieving the Strategy’s objective.
Following a commercial tender process, IASME were selected by the NCSC as their Cyber Essentials Partnerand took over full responsibility for delivery of the Cyber Essentials scheme from the 1st April 2020.