The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has unveiled a new website with the aim of making it the UK’s home page for cyber security.
It has made the site available in beta format, saying that it wants to extend its use beyond security experts and large organisations to a much wider range of people.
One of the significant steps has been to make the site as secure as necessary, rather than as secure as possible, reflecting the NCSC’s emphasis on risk management rather than eradication in cyber security.
Richard C, the NCSC’s chief security architect, said: “The National Cyber Security Centre has always said organisations should invest in an appropriate amount of security – and that’s what we’ve done with our new website.
“There is often a tendency amongst the cyber security community to set the bar as high as possible. We want to show that the vital thing is sensible risk management, so we’ve focused on making our user experience fantastic and our security good enough.
“When designing computer systems, we always tailor our approach to the system in question. Our website is intended to openly share content with the public so has quite different controls to systems that handle information we need to keep private.”
Easier search
NCSC has also emphasised the creation of new sections designed around specific needs of users. It said this should mean people will spend less time looking for the guidance they need, and more time reading it.
User research has been used to develop concise guides tailored to each audience, multi-page articles for complex topics and an alert banner on the homepage with important advice and guidance during live cyber security incidents. The site has also been built for ‘mobile first’ use, and with an alert banner on the home page that can lead to advice during cyber security incidents.
The organisation is now asking for feedback on the site for further amendments.
The site has been launched this week on the 30th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web.
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
