The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) recently hosted a significant conference at its London headquarters, focusing on advancing cyber defense through innovative cyber deception technologies. The event brought together international government partners, UK officials, and industry leaders to discuss the potential of these technologies in strengthening national cybersecurity. The NCSC aims to create a comprehensive evidence base to support its Active Cyber Defence 2.0 strategy, emphasizing the role of cyber deception in detecting and mitigating cyber threats.
Cyber deception technologies are designed to mislead and trap cyber adversaries by creating decoy systems and data. The NCSC has identified two primary applications for these technologies. The first includes low-interaction solutions such as digital tripwires and honeytokens, which are intended to alert organizations to unauthorized access attempts. These tools are suitable for deployment across all organizations, helping to identify potential intrusions early. The second application involves both low and high-interaction honeypots that gather detailed threat intelligence. These are targeted at organizations with advanced security operations and managed cybersecurity service providers.
The NCSC has set ambitious targets for this initiative, planning to deploy 5,000 instances of cyber deception solutions across the UK’s internet infrastructure, 20,000 instances within internal networks, 200,000 assets in cloud environments, and 2,000,000 tokens. The primary objective is to assess the effectiveness of these deployments in uncovering latent and emerging cyber threats and to determine whether their presence influences the behavior of threat actors. This extensive deployment will provide valuable data to evaluate and refine cyber deception strategies.
To achieve these goals, the NCSC is actively seeking collaboration from both public and private sector organizations. These organizations are encouraged to participate by sharing their experiences and outcomes related to cyber deception deployments. The insights gained from these collaborations will contribute to a comprehensive evidence base, which the NCSC plans to summarize and publish. By fostering this collaborative approach, the NCSC aims to enhance the overall resilience of the UK’s cyber infrastructure and improve strategies for detecting and countering cyber threats.
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