The review provides highlights, including major developments, on cybersecurity in the UK between September 1, 2020, and August 31, 2021.
Highlights of the 2021 NCSC Annual Review
The NCSC stated that it offered support for 777 significant cyber incidents in the past year. This number is up from last year’s 723. The agency said that this growth can be attributed partly to its efforts to “proactively identify cyber threats,” as well as the increase in cyber attacks, such as ransomware. Furthermore, the review states that the agency received over 5.9 million reports of malicious content from the public. These reports were sent via the NCSC’s Suspicious Email Reporting Service. As a consequence, the agency managed to take down over 50,500 scans, and 90,100 malicious URLs.
Cyber Criminals are Targeting UK Healthcare Sector
The review states that cyber criminals targeted many UK academic and research institutions with ransomware attacks in Autumn 2020. The institutions are described as being “critical to the strategic response to and recovery from the pandemic.” It added that the University of Oxford faced a ransomware attack while it was carrying out vaccine research. However, the NCSC was able to prevent or mitigate a large portion of these attacks. This is due to prior work that the agency had done with universities, health, and scientific institutions “to review and improve their cyber resilience and implement services to prevent successful attacks.” Some of the key interventions made by the NCSC mentioned in the review include:
It shared “tens of thousands of indicators of compromise” with institutions to enable them to take mitigating actions. The agency provided guidance and threat assessments to more than 80 companies and 14 universities. It also promoted services like Early Warning, Web Check, and Mail Check. Through its Protective Domain Name System (PDNS), the agency blocked organizations like the NHS, as well as healthcare and vaccines providers from accessing malicious domains 4.4 billion times. It said that this was “crucial in tackling Covid-19 related phishing and malware sites.”
NCSC Chief Executive Lindy Cameron stated, “I’m proud of the way the NCSC has responded to what has been another hugely challenging year for the country as we all continue to navigate our way through the pandemic.” “The support and expertise we have provided for stakeholders from government all the way through to the general public during the pandemic has been vital to keeping the country safe online,” Cameron added.
