The National Cyber Crime Programme of the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) is rolling out its Police CyberAlarm tool to help organisations in England and Wales understand and monitor malicious cyber activity.
The development has been funded by the Home Office and the tool is based on Pervade Software’s Pervade OpView platform.
A spokesperson for the programme said Police CyberAlarm, which is freely available, acts like a CCTV camera in monitoring traffic seen in an organisation’s connection to the internet and can detect and provide regular reports on malicious activity.
It leverages the OpView platform’s database architecture to make it possible to gather relevant data with no virtual private network or network address translation rules or onsite engineering work. Among its other capabilities are being able to automatically detect and geolocate the source IP address attacks where possible, alert police forces of attackers within their jurisdictions, and provide forensic evidence of attacks.
The system is designed to protect personal data and intellectual property by not collecting any content of the internet traffic.
Collaboration with industry
Commissioner of City of London Police, Ian Dyson, in his role as NPCC lead for cyber crime said: “Police CyberAlarm is a great example of what can be achieved when policing and private industry work together. We have been able to work with a partner to develop a tool which every business in England and Wales can benefit from.
“Any business or organisation with a computer network can sign up for free and join the growing network of Police CyberAlarm members.”
He added: “The more members we have, the more data we get which will provide law enforcement with a much richer intelligence picture about the current and emerging threats businesses are facing. The data will also be presented back to members in the form of regular reports to help them take steps to improve their cyber security.”
