Yesterday, the UK government announced that mobile and broadband carriers must follow a new set of rules that will strengthen our protection against cyber attacks.
“we know that today the security and resilience of our communications networks and services is more important than ever. From heightened geopolitical threats through to malicious cyber criminals exploiting network vulnerabilities, global events have shown the importance of providing world-leading security for our networks and services.
That’s why the creation of a new telecoms security framework via the Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021 was so important. With the help of the telecoms industry, we’ve now been able to move that framework forwards.”
– Matt Warman, Minister of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
The new rules which the companies will need to follow, look at areas such as
- how (and from whom) providers can procure infrastructure and services
- how providers police activity and access
- the investments they make into their security and data protection and the monitoring of that
- how providers inform stakeholders of resulting data breaches or network outagesprocedures by March 2024
The executive summary of the consultation outcome is one we completely endorse:
The UK is becoming ever more dependent on public telecoms networks and services. The increased reliance of the economy, society and critical national infrastructure (CNI) on such networks and services means it is important to have confidence in their security. As the value of our connectivity increases, it becomes a more attractive target for attackers. It is important to make sure that our networks and services are secure in this evolving threat landscape.
Proposals for new telecoms security regulations and code of practice – government response to public consultation – Updated 30 August 2022.
TechCrunch highlights that those who fail to comply with the new regulations will face big fines, up to £100,000 per day.
SOS Intelligence is focused on providing effective and affordable cyber threat intelligence. We would welcome a conversation with any mobile and / or broadband carrier as we can definitely help you.
We can help you avoid the question from your CEO or MD… Why didn’t we know about this?
Simply put, we monitor keywords, email addresses, domains and more online including the Dark Web, so you get to know immediately if your data has been leaked. You can then do something about it.
Forewarned in many cases will be incredibly helpful.
The results of a GOV.UK survey released in March 2020 confirms cyber security breaches are becoming more frequent. It found 46% of UK businesses and charities reported a cyber- attack during the year. Of those, 33% claimed they experienced a cyber breach in 2020 at least once a week – up from 22% in 2017.
The consultation is recognising that the threats from certain countries are not going away, but more likely to be increasing. The UK’s vigilance needs to increase to meet these threats.
Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash