Every day, we work to protect Aotearoa New Zealand and its interests. The NCSC supports nationally significant organisations to improve their cyber security, and we respond to national-level harm and advanced threats.
We provide system leadership for government cyber security. One of the ways we provide leadership is by developing standards and frameworks for Aotearoa New Zealand organisations, including the NCSC Cyber Security Framework (the framework). The framework is a way of organising cyber security activities and provides a common language to describe them. In developing our guidance, we engage with international standards bodies and keep up–to-date with new approaches and challenges, which we take into account as we author the New Zealand Information Security Manual (NZISM).
Our detection and discovery focus is on cyber threats with the potential for national-level harm, or affecting nationally significant organisations. This includes working with significant public and private sector organisations to deploy defensive capabilities, including our suite of CORTEX capabilities.
When cyber security incidents happen, we take action to reduce the impact and minimise future harm. We provide insights about the cyber threat landscape through public advisories and classified assessments. We uplift cyber resilience throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, which, in turn, increases the costs to adversaries targeting domestic systems. During the 2022/2023 year, the NCSC delivered a total of 79 incident reports to specific customers, and provided seven general advisories or guides.
The NCSC is in a period of transformation. As Ministers announced in July 2023, we are in the early stages of moving to a new operating model, with the establishment of a lead government operational cyber security agency. This involves the integration of the functions of the NCSC and CERT NZ, from 31 August 2023. Our people continue to deliver their existing core functions to their current customers, while supporting this change. We look forward to increased collaboration over time as we move toward a single integrated operational agency.
The NCSC Cyber Security Framework
The framework includes five functions:
- Guide & Govern
- Identify & Understand
- Prevent & Protect
- Detect & Contain
- Respond & Recover
Organisations can refer to the framework to understand how the NCSC uses advice, guidance, standards and security services to communicate consistently what being cyber secure and cyber resilient means. In this report, we will refer to the NCSC Cyber Security Framework and its functions.
For more information; see this page, where the framework is available to use under a creative commons licence.
Who we work with
The NCSC is at the heart of national cyber defence, but people and partnerships are key to preventing harm from malicious cyber activity in Aotearoa New Zealand. We work with domestic and international agencies to understand the cyber threat landscape, respond to incidents, and give robust cyber security advice. We also work with commercial partners to deliver key services.
In 2022/2023, some of our key domestic partners included CERT NZ, which supports individuals and businesses to understand cyber threats and respond to incidents, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), responsible for digital safety and reducing spam, and New Zealand Police, which investigates digital crime. We further provide all-source strategic cyber intelligence and advice government-wide, including to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s (DPMC) National Cyber Policy Office (NCPO), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF), DPMC’s National Assessments Bureau (NAB), and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS).;
We maintain strong international relationships to share intelligence and understand the cyber threat landscape. We work closely with the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (UK NCSC), the United States (US) National Security Agency Cybersecurity (NSA Cybersecurity) and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
We work with information technology organisations and cyber security providers to investigate cyber compromises, provide advice about how commercial services meet the needs of their government customers, and to deliver MFN®.
MFN partners are key to the service’s success. Partners deploy the threat detection and disruption capabilities to the core and the periphery of hundreds of customer networks – ensuring that when threats are identified, they are quickly disrupted. As at 30 June 2023, the NCSC has 14 commercial partners delivering MFN services: Advantage, Cassini, CyberCX, Datacom, Defend, Inde, InPhySec, The Instillery, Scientific Software & Systems, Kordia, Liquid IT, One NZ, Spark, and Unify. We are also working with additional industry partners to identify opportunities to expand MFN’s protective reach.
Acknowledgement for MFN®
The GCSB’s Malware Free Networks® (MFN®) capability has received industry praise. MFN won the “Best Security Product or Service” at the annual iSANZ cyber security industry awards in November 2022. The judges noted MFN helps defend against an evolving range of cyber threats and has increased the cyber security resilience of many New Zealand organisations.
Additionally, the judges commented on the strength of MFN’s design and implementation, and its ability to improve security across the country while also protecting the privacy of users. MFN was also the recipient of the 2023 Te Tohu a te Pirimia, Prime Minister’s Award at the Te Hāpai Hapori, Spirit of Service awards. In addition, the threat detection and disruption service was also joint winner of the Te Tohu mō te Ratonga Whakahirahira, Service Excellence award. The awards recognise the collaborative approach MFN uses to raise Aotearoa New Zealand’s cyber defence.