LRQA Nettitude has become a Level 2 NCSC Cyber Incident Response (CIR) Assured Service Provider after proving its incident response capabilities, competence, and experience against the NCSC CIR L2 Technical Standards.
LRQA Nettitude has become a Level 2 NCSC Cyber Incident Response (CIR) Assured Service Provider after proving its incident response capabilities, competence, and experience against the NCSC CIR L2 Technical Standards.
What is the NCSC CIR Scheme?
The NCSC Cyber Incident Response scheme is well established and helps organisations experiencing a cyber attack quickly and easily identify trusted providers of commercial incident response services. These assured companies support organisations to investigate and recover from a cyber attack and advise on how they can prevent future attacks.
The CIR Level 2 (L2) scheme has been introduced to complement the original CIR scheme, which will now be re-designated as CIR Level 1 (L1). CIR L2 aims to assure providers against a different standard, which calls for a more widely attainable level of technical experience to widen the supply of assured CIR providers.
The requirements of the CIR L2 standard are designed to support target organisations which are at risk of common cyber attacks. Such organisations are likely to include most private sector organisations, charities, Local Authorities and smaller public sector organisations and organisations which operate predominantly in the UK.
Speaking about the new scheme, Chris Ensor, Deputy Director of Cyber Growth at the NCSC, said “Falling victim to a cyber attack is really stressful. Finding someone with the skills and knowledge to help can also be hard, if, like many, you are not familiar with the cybersecurity world. For many years, we have Assured Cyber Incident Response services for organisations targeted by the most sophisticated threat actors.
I am really pleased that we can now assure a similar service for any organisations affected by criminal threat actors, a service that will be good enough for the majority of incidents that smaller organisations face. The NCSC badge will give confidence that the company they use has the right expertise to help them.”
LRQA Nettitude continues to lead the way in industry accreditation standards
Nick Benson, CEO of CREST said, “As the first NCSC CIR scheme delivery partner, CREST is delighted to congratulate LRQA Nettitude for becoming one of the first level 2 NCSC CIR Assured Service Providers. This reflects their ability to help private sector organisations, charities, local governments, and smaller public sector organisations recover from a cyber attack and gives buyers the confidence they have the necessary capabilities to help them.”
Ben Densham, Chief Technology Officer at LRQA Nettitude added, “Our new NCSC status further strengthens our relationship with both the NCSC and CREST. LRQA Nettitude were already the only organisation in the world with a full suite of CREST accreditations[1] and being able to add our Level 2 Assured Service Provider status will give great confidence to our client base of the lengths we are continuously striving to make sure we remain at the very forefront of the industry.”
[1] Source: CREST July 2023
About LRQA Nettitude
Founded in 2003, LRQA Nettitude is an award-winning global provider of cybersecurity services, bringing innovative thought leadership to the ever-evolving cybersecurity marketplace. Through their research and innovation, they provide threat-led services that span technical assurance, consulting, and managed detection and response offerings.
Driven by a desire to build and deliver the best cybersecurity propositions in the industry and stay abreast of the evolving legislative and regulatory landscape. They help clients to prioritise their cybersecurity risks, enabling them to focus on the activities that are core to their business.
LRQA Nettitude is part of LRQA, a leading global assurance partner, bringing together decades of unrivalled expertise in assessment, advisory, inspection, and cybersecurity services – underpinned by data-driven insights – to help its clients navigate a new era of risk.
About CREST
CREST is an international not-for-profit, membership body representing the global cybersecurity industry. CREST’s goal is to help create a secure digital world for all by quality-assuring its members and delivering professional certifications to the cybersecurity industry.
CREST accredits almost 300 member companies, operating across dozens of countries, and certifies thousands of professionals worldwide. Its members undergo a rigorous quality assurance process and employ competent professionals. Organisations buying their cybersecurity services from CREST members do so with confidence.
About the National Cyber Security Centre
Launched in October 2016, the NCSC has headquarters in London and brought together expertise from CESG (the information assurance arm of GCHQ), the Centre for Cyber Assessment, CERT-UK, and the Centre for Protection of National Infrastructure (which became the National Protective Security Authority, NPSA, in March 2023)
The NCSC provides a single point of contact for SMEs, larger organisations, government agencies, the general public and departments. We also work collaboratively with other law enforcement, defence, the UK’s intelligence and security agencies and international partners.
