The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has launched the second iteration of its Active Cyber Defence (ACD) programme.
It said that ACD 2.0 is aimed at providing tools and services – such as the Protective Domain Name Service, Web Check and Mail Check – for organisations to reduce the harm from commodity cyber attacks.
The protection comes in a number of forms, including dealing with vulnerabilities to actively detecting and disrupting attacks.
ACD was launched in 2017, since when cyber threats and the defensive capabilities have both evolved significantly.
Two principles
NCSC said the new version will be underpinned by two principles, the first being that it will only deliver solutions where the market is not able to. This could be due to the organisation’s unique position in government, scaling abilities, capabilities or authority.
The second is that NCSC will aim to divest itself of most of the new services to other parts of government or the private sector within three years.
“We want ACD 2.0 to be a partnership, across the NCSC, across the cyber security community in government, and crucially also with industry and academia,” its chief technology officer, Ollie Whitehouse, said. “Combined with our unique organisation, we can have a disproportionate impact on cyber resilience at scale.”
He also called on organisations wanting to work with NCSC to get in touch.
