2019 ACD report highlights progress in protecting UK cyberspace

The 2019 Active Cyber Defence (ACD) report was released earlier this week showing real progress protecting UK citizens and dissuading criminals.

The report, published by the NCSC and its Technical Director Ian Levy, shared impressive figures for 2018 including:

• takedown of 22,133 phishing campaigns hosted in UK delegated IP space, totalling 142,203 individual attacks
• 14,124 UK government-related phishing sites removed
• number of phishing campaigns against HMRC continued to fall dramatically – with campaigns spoofing HMRC falling from 2,466 in 2017 to 1,332 in 2018
• number of takedowns of fraudulent websites was 192,256 with 64% of them down in 24 hours
• the number of individual web checks run increased with a total of 111,853 advisories issued direct to users

Whilst the numbers are positive, there is still plenty to achieve with these latest figures offering a strong foundation in which to improve the NCSC’s ACD programme.

“While this and other successes are encouraging, we know there is more to do,” said Ian Levy.

“We would welcome partnerships with people and organisations who wish to contribute to the ACD ecosystem so that together we can further protect UK citizens.”

The 2019 report is available now to download and digest, but Ian Levy has also written a blog post offering some more narrative around the report.