It’s a great honour to be associated with the NCSC and adds greatly to our credibility as the provider of an innovative crisis exercising solutions
NCSC stands for the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK, whose stated purpose is “helping to make the UK the safest place to live and work online”, and is part of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The NCSC was launched in 2016 and brought together expertise from several prominent cyber security bodies, including CESG (the information assurance arm of GCHQ), into a single point of contact for businesses and organisations of all sizes, government agencies and the general public.
The NCSC Cyber Accelerator is a mentoring programme which supports the growth of start-up cyber security companies who aim to bring “better, faster and cheaper” security products to market. It is part of the UK Government’s £1.9 billion National Cyber Security Strategy, and as well as bringing obvious benefit to organisations and the public, the programme is also supporting the emerging cyber security industry in the UK, encouraging skills, jobs and growth. The program is powered by Wayra, Telefónica’s open innovation arm, which supports enterprises creating new products for the UK’s security industry.
Competition is fierce to access the programme, given the obvious prestige for tech entrepreneurs to be associated with the NCSC and the Cyber Accelerator. Businesses who get in have much to gain: as well as potential commercial opportunities, there is a wealth of mentoring and advice from the NCSC.
Start-ups apply to take part through open competition, using technical challenges written by technical leaders within the NCSC. The challenges identify areas of cyber security weakness where new products are needed. And successful applicants have to demonstrate a product which directly meets one of those areas of those weaknesses, in our case, strengthening the human element in cyber security.
We are in the fourth cohort of participants in NCSC Cyber Accelerator programme, and in good company. Our fellow cyber security innovators include: Fraud Net, Keybox, Ohalo, Secure School, Trust Stamp and PixelPin.
Once a company like ours has completed the programme, it then joins the Cyber Accelerator Alumni. These are all the innovative businesses who have made a name for themselves since the Cyber Accelerator began in January 2017: Aquilai Cyber Intelligence, barac, BlackDice, Configured Things, CounterCraft, CyberSmart, CyberOwl, Elemendar, Elliptic, ExactTrak, iHackLabs, intruder, Ioetec, LuJam, Mission Secure, nettoken, RazorSecure, Secure Code Warrior, Spherical Defence, StatusToday, trustelevate, verimuchme, Warden
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