Staying safe with CiSP – a message from Leeds City Council

Recent data provided through national sources identified the following cyber criminality in the West Yorkshire area. Key statistics highlight the likelihood of a business being attacked by the following:

• Banking Trojans: 40%
• Click Fraud: 24%
• Multi-purpose Malware: 25%

As a business, you cannot close your eyes to the risk, threat and harm of cyber criminality. Whilst within the region and nationally, law enforcement have started developing its capacity to address cyber criminality, it is far from sufficient to tackle every business threat. Businesses must therefore protect themselves.

The majority of malware reported to the Cabinet Office Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) was of a known type and can be defended proactively by standard measures. To learn more about cybercrime affecting Yorkshire and Humberside, click here to view a report from aql, written with the assistance of the Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research (CENTRIC).

The step to mitigating the risk of new threats, risk and possible harm is to be up to date with the latest warnings and alerts. The challenge in Leeds, and the surrounding area, is how to share this information securely between businesses.  To help achieve this, CERT created a platform, known as the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership (CiSP, see below), for reporting and sharing sensitive information.

CiSP operates in all UK Regions to allow businesses to have access to vital information and provide local collaboration against this global challenge. CiSP is a free portal run by the CERT and is available to all businesses.

Last year, aql^®  was chosen by CERT-UK (now part of the GCHQ NCSC) to establish, champion and grow the Yorkshire and Humber CiSP community.

Leeds City Council is working with aql, CERT and its partners to maximise the ability of local businesses to defend themselves against cyber criminality

Leeds City Council is determined to make the city the best for business — that means online as well as traditional business. Making businesses safe in Leeds is a key aspect of our vision. We want to do all we can to support safer online business in Leeds in order to protect our status as the second financial and digital centre of the UK.

A valuable part of that effort is supporting the CiSP. Leeds City Council will work with aql, the regional champion, to help raise awareness within the Yorkshire and Humberside business community and help make online business in Leeds safer.

Leeds is a great city with an incredible future ahead. Building on our status as the second commercial centre of the UK and sustaining a safe online environment requires businesses to protect themselves and each other. Joining the CiSP is a great way to keep up to date and to help build a digital fortress to keep trade moving and business flowing safely in Leeds.

Building a safe and successful digital business is an ambition that will underpin sustainable digital growth in the Leeds region. A step towards keeping our data secure is finding ways to be appraised of threats and risk. Joining CiSP provides the opportunity for SMEs to develop cyber awareness and have access to a support community.

We ask that you take action and join the CiSP. It’s free and does not use your access to email, spam or advertise to you. It is managed by the NCSC and has second level authentication to make it secure. By using it you will be much better informed about threats, risks and harms. The website for registration is www.ncsc.gov.uk/cisp.

Once you have registered please join the Yorkshire & Humberside Group which covers local issues.

Signed,