INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security

A total of 7.1 million suspicious emails and URLs were flagged by UK organisations and citizens via the NCSC ’ s free Suspicious Email Reporting Service ( SERS ) between January 2022 and December 2022 – the equivalent of nearly 20,000 reports a day .

The reports , many of which came from UK businesses , contributed to the direct removal of nearly a quarter of a million ( 235,000 ) malicious URLs from the Internet by the

NCSC since SERS – the first service of its kind globally – launched in April 2020 .

It took less than six hours on average for the NCSC to remove reported malicious URLs from the Internet .

The finding is one of many insights in the sixth annual report from Active Cyber Defence ( ACD ), a cornerstone programme from the NCSC which takes a ‘ wholeof-society ’ approach to cybercrime and prevents millions of high-volume cyberattacks from ever reaching UK organisations and citizens each year .

Jonathon Ellison , NCSC Director for National Resilience and Future Technology , commented on the news : “ In a cyber threat environment that resembles the Hydra – cut down one attack , another springs up in its place – ACD is once again doing unparalleled work to keep the country safe .

“ As this latest report shows , cybersecurity is not the sole preserve of tech specialists : businesses are increasingly alive to and eager to engage with the cyber-risks they face , signing up in swathes to make the most of NCSC data and expertise .

“ Small businesses have a key role to play in making it safer to work and live online , which is why we ’ re making it even easier for them to shore up their defences with accessible , free tools and soon , to manage these effortlessly via our integrated MyNCSC platform .” p

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