NCSC Annual Review 2021

I am delighted to present the fifth Annual Review of the National Cyber Security Centre, a part of GCHQ. Since becoming the organisation’s Chief Executive Officer in October 2020, I have been immensely proud of the work the NCSC has done – and this review reflects an impressive year of delivery.

Over the last 12 months, the NCSC has played a key role in managing significant events and taken action to make the UK a safer place to live and work online. A particular highlight has been the work that the NCSC did to support the Covid-19 vaccine roll out. The NCSC dealt with 777 incidents – an increase on last year – of which 20% were linked to the health sector and vaccines.

One of the trends that the NCSC has seen over the last year was a worrying growth in criminal groups using ransomware to extort organisations. In my view it is now the most immediate cyber security threat to UK businesses and one that I think should be higher on the boardroom agenda.

An international supply-chain data breach emanating from a compromise of SolarWinds was one of the most significant incidents that the NCSC dealt with over the last year. This attack involved one of the world’s most popular IT system management platforms being breached by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service and is an important reminder of the need for organisations to be resilient if one of their suppliers is affected.

But we haven’t just spent the last year simply defending against attacks – the NCSC has also taken proactive steps that will make our country thrive in the digital age more safely in the decades to come.

We have continued to roll out the NCSC’s Active Cyber Defence Services. This included launching the Early Warning Service, to alert organisations to emerging threats, and the increasing success of the Suspicious Email Reporting Service, which allows the public to report potential scams. The latter is run in partnership with the City of London Police, and since its launch in April 2020 has received more than 7.25 million reports from the public, with almost 60,000 scams taken down as a result.

A big part of the NCSC’s mission involves sharing and collaborating with organisations and the public. In the last year we have worked with a range of sectors – from education to farming, sport to Critical National Infrastructure – to provide bespoke advice on becoming more resilient. And we also launched GCHQ’s first TV advertising campaign – directly engaging the British public with advice on how they can increase their cyber security.

I would like to thank everybody who has helped to make the UK as safe from cyber threats as possible over the last year. It is truly a team effort between the NCSC, government, law enforcement, business and the public that helps to ensure all of the UK can make the most of the digital age and the opportunities it offers us all.

Lindy Cameron, CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre