Some Observations On Britain's New Cyber Security Strategy

A new strategy document spells out an assertive posture by a UK government that’s wary of some shared intelligence capabilities between allies.

At the beginning of November, with much fanfare, the United Kingdom released a new strategy that sets out UK government’s approach to improving the country’s cybersecurity over the next five years.

It follows the UK’s previous effort dating back to 2011, and allocates £1.9 billion ($2.36 billion) over five years, doubling the previous investment of £860 million ($1 billion). This newest five-year plan has the usual fare. It identifies the threats and vulnerabilities facing the UK, creates three pillars using alliteration (defend, deter and develop), and is filled with government-speak that could have been ripped from The Thick of It or Veep (“we need to invest in proofing ourselves against future threats”).

The threats the UK identifies are not surprising. It singles out Russian-language organized cybercrime, state-sponsored threats, terrorist groups (although it caveats that terrorist groups are likely to prefer physical attacks over digital ones for the time being), hacktivists, and oddly, script kiddies.

The strategy also points out the UK’s vulnerabilities, such as the proliferation of insecure internet of things devices, poor cyber hygiene, legacy and unpatched systems, and the availability of off-the-shelf hacking resources. These threats and vulnerabilities are not unique to the UK–every country connected to the internet faces identical or similar challenges.

There are Four Issues from the new Strategy

First, there seems to be an inherent tension between market incentives to spur better cybersecurity and regulation throughout the document. There’s a heavy emphasis placed on the importance of using a mix of intelligence sharing, incentives to spur the creation of cybersecurity products like certification schemes or incentives to create software that is “secure by default,” and using the government as a test case for cybersecurity approaches with the hopes that they cascade into the private sector.

However, the strategy recognizes that much of these same efforts were undertaken in the previous iteration of the strategy, with somewhat limited effect. The strategy leaves the door open to regulation but doesn’t elaborate on what that could look like. There’s also no mention of the EU network and information security directive, which the UK is still technically required to implement until it formally leaves the European Union.

Second, the strategy places heavy emphasis on taking “active cyber defense” measures to protect the UK. Generally, the term active cyber defense has been synonymous with hacking back, whereby companies and other non-government actors are allowed to retaliate in cyberspace and is controversial.

In its strategy, that’s not what the UK is advocating. Instead, active cyber defense is defined as a series of technical measures, taken by government in cooperation with industry (mostly communications service providers), to make it “significantly harder to attack UK internet services and users.”

The technical measures include DNS filtering, coordinating botnet take-downs, DMARC and other methods to curtail phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, and Border Gateway Protocol hijacks.

Third, the UK, like many other countries, seems to be more open about resorting to the use of offensive cyber operations to protect and defend its interests.

Five years ago, countries were loath to openly talk about offensive cyber capabilities, with many only referencing defensive capabilities in what could be gleaned from official doctrine. Now, the UK is open about the need to invest in its National Offensive Cyber Program to ensure that UK capabilities “can be deployed at a time and place” of its choosing.

The strategy also makes clear that the UK will attribute state-sponsored cyber incidents publicly when “we judge it in the national interest to do so.” Unlike the United States, Germany, Canada, South Korea, and others, the UK has yet to publicly accuse a state of being behind a specific cyber incident. Perhaps the new strategy signals that UK officials will be more open to naming and shaming as part of their cyber deterrence efforts.

Fourth the strategy makes explicit the UK’s desire to develop sovereign cryptographic capabilities, “developed in the UK, by British nationals.” This raises a bunch of questions. Does the UK not trust crypto advocated by its other Five Eyes partners or in standardization bodies? Is it a response to the NSA’s alleged undermining of a widely used crypto standard that came to light as a result of Edward Snowden? Is the UK trying to stimulate the development of crypto that can be decrypted by law enforcement to fix the “going dark” problem?

As with any government strategy document, its implementation will determine its effectiveness. Much of the strategy rests on developing government capabilities with the hope that the UK private sector shamelessly pilfers the best ideas and approaches. Cybersecurity is probably one of the few areas where plagiarism is celebrated, not frowned upon.

DefenseOne:                             Britain Building Cyber Forces to Attack ISIS:  

 UK To Increase National Cyber Defences:                  ECHELON Has Been Watching You All Your Life:

 

 

« New Business Protection From Cyber Attackers
US Army Command Learning Cyberwar From Social Media »

Infosecurity Europe
CyberSecurity Jobsite
Perimeter 81

Directory of Suppliers

MIRACL

MIRACL

MIRACL provides the world’s only single step Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) which can replace passwords on 100% of mobiles, desktops or even Smart TVs.

CSI Consulting Services

CSI Consulting Services

Get Advice From The Experts: * Training * Penetration Testing * Data Governance * GDPR Compliance. Connecting you to the best in the business.

Clayden Law

Clayden Law

Clayden Law advise global businesses that buy and sell technology products and services. We are experts in information technology, data privacy and cybersecurity law.

IT Governance

IT Governance

IT Governance is a leading global provider of information security solutions. Download our free guide and find out how ISO 27001 can help protect your organisation's information.

Authentic8

Authentic8

Authentic8 transforms how organizations secure and control the use of the web with Silo, its patented cloud browser.

InfoSecurity Magazine

InfoSecurity Magazine

Infosecurity Magazine has over ten years of experience providing knowledge and insight into the information security industry.

Okta

Okta

Okta is an enterprise-grade identity management service, built from the ground up in the cloud to address the challenges of a cloud-mobile-interconnected world.

Conference-Service

Conference-Service

Conference-Service provides a categorised calendar of conferences and events, including Information Security & Privacy.

Thinklogical

Thinklogical

Thinklogical manufactures secure, KVM, video, audio, and computer peripheral signal switching solutions for defence C4ISR applications.

VU Security

VU Security

VU is a specialist in Cybersecurity software development with a focus on the prevention of fraud and identity theft.

Cyber Security Academy (CSA)

Cyber Security Academy (CSA)

The CSA aims to educate professionals who wish to contribute to strengthening the digital defensibility of states, organisations and individual citizens.

Cyber Polygon

Cyber Polygon

Cyber Polygon is an annual online exercise which connects various global organisations to train their competencies and exchange best practices.

CyFIR

CyFIR

CyFIR is a network investigation and Incident Response tool for performing live computer investigations across any size enterprise.

DAtAnchor

DAtAnchor

Anchor is simply a better way to protect and control sensitive data. Zero-trust, data-centric security. Simplified.

Sencode Cyber Security

Sencode Cyber Security

Sencode provides a range of IT security solutions and services, including penetration testing and cyber awareness training to help mitigate the growing risks to your corporate infrastructure.

Dazz

Dazz

Dazz is the cloud security remediation platform for smart security and development teams.

QA Consultants

QA Consultants

QA Consultants is North America’s largest software quality engineering services firm, an award-winning onshore provider of software testing and quality assurance solutions.

ExtraHop

ExtraHop

ExtraHop's dynamic cyber defense platform uses cloud-scale AI to help enterprises detect and respond to advanced threats - before they compromise your business.

Jera IT

Jera IT

Jera IT provide fully managed IT support, cybersecurity services, telecoms systems, and IT strategy consultancy to businesses based in Aberdeen and the surrounding area.

FearsOff

FearsOff

FearsOff is a global information security company serving clients worldwide. White hat operators with a black hat mindset to emulate real world attacks and everchanging threat vectors.

Vulnify

Vulnify

At Vulnify, we’re revolutionizing the way businesses identify and manage security vulnerabilities.