Collaborative taskforce launches security intelligence network

A collaborative taskforce has launched The Intelligence Network, which is aimed at uniting a global community of security professionals and industry influencers in their fight against cyber crime.

Founding members of the initiative, including Andrzej Kawalec at Vodafone, Jonathan Luff at CyLon and James Sulivan at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), have contributed to a report into the challenges facing the cyber security community in the digital age.

The report addresses the changing nature of cyber criminals, the impact of the European Union’s (EU’s) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), privacy and regulation, attitudes to risk, the importance of intelligence sharing and new models of collaboration.

Drawing on the report, BAE Systems and its partners have signed up to a manifesto, which is a series of commitments that are aimed at bringing about critical changes in leadership, culture, behaviour and processes to tackle the evolving threat posed by cyber crime.

Julian Cracknell, managing director at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, said there is a groundswell of support among employees, customers and partners to work together for the greater good.

“The Intelligence Network is an initiative which we hope will unite a community of like-minded global security professionals and industry influencers who share our vision. Through this manifesto, we are setting out the ambitions of The Intelligence Network and establishing a framework for creating a safer society by 2025,” he said.

The founders hope that the initiative will kick start conversations about the future of cyber defence. “We are inviting organisations to join the Intelligence Network – it is open to all, free to join and encourages active participation at all levels,” said Cracknell.

“It has been conceived as a result of the latest input from the community on what needs to change, both in terms of the emerging issues that represent the greatest threat to society in a digital age, but also the way we work together to tackle these issues head on as one collective. Our call to the industry is this: be part of the change you want to see.”

The manifesto is focused on three areas of transformation: collaboration, simplicity and certainty.

By 2025, the group hopes to achieve:

• The sharing of intelligence, understanding, approaches, technology and resources to ensure co-ordinated action in response to new threats.
• Transparent security so that organisations and individuals can see what they do and do not have in place, where there are gaps and their implications.
• Aggregated, verified information provided to appropriate law enforcement and government organisations.
• Technology to be secure by default – both on purchase and through its life – and maintained through automatic updates that don’t overload the memory or workload of individuals.
• Security to be available as an affordable utility for those that need it.
• Security to be managed through standard corporate risk management structures in the same way as health and safety.

The Intelligence Network will be led by a steering committee comprising industry influencers and those “passionate” about driving change in the security sector, but will be open to anyone to join.

The community will meet both physically and in the virtual world to share ideas, intelligence and wisdom and support campaigns to drive positive change in understanding, attitudes and processes.

Jonathan Luff, cofounder of CyLon, said cyber criminals use creativity and collaboration to operate at the cutting edge of technology.

“From a cyber defence perspective, we need to be doing the same. We need to rethink models of collaboration; small businesses and large enterprises must work hand in hand and we must start to place greater emphasis on the sharing of information, rather than the attribution of blame,” he said.

“With the creation of The Intelligence Network, we should start to see a culture of openness that challenges and changes mindsets, patterns of behaviours as well as policy and legislation. I’m excited by what this community can do – and the impact we can have.”

The Intelligence Network has set up a website to keep members updated, share new thinking and guidance and provide progress reports back to the industry.