Delivering award-winning value: The power of the Northamptonshire Cyber Security Forum
Our latest Digital Northants Story comes from Heather Francis, Digital and Technology Delivery Manager for the Office of the Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner. Heather explains the role of the Northamptonshire Cyber Security Forum, the power of the Police Cyber Alarm and the work that led to a national award win.
The Northamptonshire Cyber Security Forum was launched in 2017 as a way for the Police to get in the same room as local businesses, to share knowledge about cyber security threats and what can be done to combat those threats.
I took over the Forum in November 2018 when I came into my current role and I embraced the challenge.
There are obviously competing demands on people and their time, so I've tried to make it as easy as possible for people to turn up for an hour and a half every month so they can keep up to date on emerging threats and trends.
For every Forum, I produce a news roundup of what's been happening over the previous month, we have an agenda and a speaker. In the five years since I took over, we've had lots of different speakers that have covered a really vast range of subjects.
Those topics have included things like asset management and cyber insurance - things that people wouldn't necessarily think of that are connected to cyber. Asset management is really important - if you don't know what you've got, you don't know how you're going to protect it. We've also covered areas like cyber security awareness training and penetration testing - finding out where your weaknesses are. We've had some really great speakers and we're always looking for more.
What I love is that it's a straightforward knowledge transfer. So there's no selling, there's no sales pitch. It's all about raising up that knowledge level and awareness. Even if you're completely non-technical and cyber is not your bag, I think you still get something out of attending. A few people have said to me that the Forum acts like their own personal cyber team. It's where they get the real information about what's going on, not only in Northamptonshire, but nationally and internationally.
The Forum's knowledge and expertise has been used to develop capabilities that extend far beyond Northamptonshire. A notable success of the Forum is being the catalyst for launching the Police Cyber Alarm (PCA) which has been developed by a Forum regular attendee organisation, Pervade, which is based in Daventry. Police Cyber Alarm is like a CCTV camera over the front door to an organisation’s network. It monitors the logs of traffic from the organisation’s internet connection, which can be used to detect and provide reports of suspected malicious activity.
The Police Cyber Alarm started as a low level and local initiative within the East Midlands region with the first organisations piloting based in Northamptonshire. The Police Cyber Alarm has since been acquired by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), which immediately saw the benefit of this system and rolled it out nationally, to all police forces within the UK to offer, free of charge, to businesses.
Police Cyber Alarm benefits both the member organisations and Policing. In addition to logging suspicious activity on their networks, members also receive regular reports on analysis of their own data, vulnerability scanning of their cyber assets, reports on regional and national threats and trends and help the UK Police to identify, pursue and prosecute cyber criminals.
Police Cyber Alarm now boasts an impressive number of members right across the UK and has identified over a billion potential malicious incidents which has helped members take action to prevent and pre-empt a successful cyber-attack.
That shows the benefit for a wide range of people and that's reflected in the variety of the people who attend the Forum, from sectors such as healthcare, finance, education, charities and government departments. We also have small business owners, IT managers and subject matter experts. But we don't use tech-speak - we try to break everything down to help raise the knowledge level for everyone who attends.
We run on the third Friday of every month from 9.30am to 11am. You can attend online, but you can also attend in person if you like. We meet in our tri-service building, Darby House, in Wellingborough, and there's tea and coffee and pastries and biscuits for anybody that does attend in person, so that's an extra bonus!
Earlier this month, we won an award at The Real Cyber Awards 2023, which is all about people who are making a real difference within the industry. The category we won was the Cyber Public Service Award, which recognised either an individual or a team working in a public sector organisation, providing or delivering high quality cyber security support and education not just to those within the organisation but also externally. Because we have such a breadth at Forum, I think that's what clinched it for us, although I was not expecting to win!
The award was a little boost to help share the main message - that this is a free resource that only takes an hour and a half of time each month. But it's also a way attendees can give back as well. It's a two-way conversation. And I wouldn't be able to run the Forum unless there were people who are engaged with what it's about and want to come along every month and contribute.
We follow Chatham House rules, so anybody can use any information they gain by coming along without needing to attribute it to any one particular person or organisation. They are free to take that information and utilise it.
Once you've engaged with the Police as a business, you have an ongoing resource too. Police attendance and involvement is provided by the Northamptonshire Police Cyber and Fraud Protect and Prevent Officers.
This adds an additional layer of benefit to attendees, giving them first-hand knowledge and experience of how cyber threats can have a real-life impact on their commercial activities, as well as an overview of national, regional, or local threats to be aware of and action against. If something was to happen to yourself or your organisation, you've got people where you can put names to faces and that personalised approach helps to build relationships over a longer period.
One of the problems is that reporting of fraud and cyber crime is hugely down on the reality. It's improved in recent years but we still don't have the full picture. So all of the reported figures about fraud and cyber crime are not the real figures by any stretch. Reporting is hugely important to ensure that Policing has an accurate threat picture and can advise and act accordingly.
That's just another part of my passion to keep improving and invigorating our Cyber Security Forum, to make sure I am delivering something that people find a valuable resource.
Want to know more?
To find out more about the Northamptonshire Cyber Security Forum, email commissioner@northantspfcc.gov.uk.