The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has stopped more than 600 cyber attacks against the UK in the past year, according to statistics published last week.  

The figures, contained in the NCSC’s third Annual Review, show that the cybersecurity centre dealt with 658 incidents across the year – bringing the total number to 1,800 since the NCSC’s formation in 2016. 

Some 900 organisations that fell victim to cyber attacks across the period were also provided with support from the centre, which continues to work closely with businesses and organisations across a range of sectors in the UK.  

Concerningly, the NCSC said that a “significant number” of incidents and threats continue to come from hostile nation-states, believed to include Russia and North Korea. 

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Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the NCSC commented: “This review gives a real insight into the breadth of outstanding work done by the NCSC and underlines why we are a world-leader in cybersecurity.  

“From handling more than 600 incidents – many from hostile nation-states – to equipping the public with the tools they need to stay safe online, we are employing our expertise on a number of fronts.”

In the past year, the centre revealed it has worked alongside law enforcement partners to provide cybersecurity awareness and training sessions to upwards of 2,700 charities and enabled nearly 3,000 small businesses to do simulated cyber exercising for themselves.

The review also highlighted the ongoing success of the NCSC’s Active Cyber Defence (ACD) programme. The initiative includes proactive schemes such as the Takedown Service, which identifies malicious websites and notifies the host to have them removed.

According to statistics published by the centre, 98% of phishing URLs discovered to be malicious have been taken down thanks to the service, marking a total of 177,335 URLs.

Around 62% of these malicious URLs were taken down within the first hour of the service’s launch, the NCSC noted

Oliver Dowden, minister for the Cabinet Office, commented: “We’ve made great progress of making the UK safer since launching our world-leading £1.9 billion cybersecurity strategy in 2015.

“Establishing the NCSC was a key part of this and has played a central role in tackling online threats posed by criminals, hacktivists and hostile nation-states.”

Dowden added: “As the Cabinet Office Minister responsible for resilience against cyber attacks and protecting our critical national infrastructure, I very much welcome the achievements laid out in this Annual Review which shows that we are making the UK a more challenging place for our cyber adversaries to operate in.”