'Defend as One, Prosper as One': Harris Federation's role in the UK's Cyber Security Strategy

Written by Jack Fowler, Head of Information and Cyber Security and Margaux Girard, Information Security Governance and Risk Analyst

...

CyberUK23, Belfast. The Harris Federation’s Cyber Security Team joined thousands of cyber security professionals from government, academia and the private sector at CyberUK23 to find innovative and collaborative ways to protect our staff and students. 

Every year, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) leads this event to gather great minds with one goal: 'Securing an Open and Resilient Digital Future”, protecting the nation and its citizens’ online. 

Walking through these halls, it was clear that at Harris Federation, we play a pivotal role in the “Defend as One, Prosper as One” UK Cyber Security Strategy – protecting our organisation, our staff and our students against more and more sophisticated cyberattacks.  

CyberUK plenary session with Lindy Cameron, CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)

Protecting teaching and learning, a core service to society 

A leader in cyber security, the UK has a “whole-of-society approach” to defending the nation. Protecting education of our children is paramount, as we deliver teaching and learning to 1 in 41 children in London.  

Unfortunately, data shows education remains one of the most attacked sectors. Schools host significant content and personal information, but often lack resource, making them vulnerable targets to opportunistic and sophisticated threat groups. This is something that the Federation knows too well. The Covid pandemic reinforced this, showing the need for reliable, resilient technology to deliver education to our children.  

But thinking about Harris as a siloed organisation doesn’t work - cyberspace is interconnected, and recent cyberattacks show that one organisation infected by malware can spread it to other organisations. Supply chain security is ever more important and complex, and at Harris, the effort we deploy to monitor, assess, and test the digital applications and software used to teach, contribute to making sure we spot malware, and stop its spread internally and externally.   

Cyber Security Culture Workshop for Harris' Service Managers

Equipping the citizens of today and tomorrow  

One of the UK Cyber Security Strategy’s objectives is to “enhance and expand the nation’s cyber skills at every level”. And we take the “every level” part seriously; cyber security training and awareness is changing towards point-in-time information, tailored to the needs of the user. This is why we want to go beyond a tick-box exercise, to comprehensive, behaviour-focused training and awareness, for our staff from teachers to leaders, but also to our students.  

Our students, are both our users in a strict cyber security sense, but for us, they are tomorrow’s workers, parents, and citizens. We believe learning about cyber security should be a part of the life skills we teach our children from a young age – to enable and empower them to use technology safely and securely. 

We see this commitment from His Majesty’s Government through the changes in the national curriculum, mandating more teaching and learning around Cyber. We also see it through the release of new Cyber themed T-Levels, aiming to get more students educated and interested in Cyber with practical experience. It is clear to us that the Harris Federation, with our size, resources, and central team have such an opportunity to set the example in this arena.  

As Lindy Cameron, CEO of NCSC stated at CyberUK23: "The decisions we take today...will lay the foundations for a secure free, open and democratic cyberspace." – so let’s start now!

Jack, Head of Information and Cyber Security talking to primary school pupils about cyber security

Building and contributing to the cybersecurity ecosystem  

Cyber security is complex, interconnected, ever-changing – and no organisation can do it by itself. This is why we exchange ideas and work with leading organisations across industries to share best practices and build a stronger, more collaborative cyber security ecosystem.  

We also build the cyber security professionals of tomorrow, through hiring apprentices from our schools.  

Northern Ireland’s cyber security ecosystem showed us the way: a collaborative, tightly-knit group of like-minded organisations can go a long way. 

CyberUK panel on Northern Ireland's cyber security ecosystem

Inspired and motivated. This is how our team felt after 2 days at CyberUK, ready to tackle new challenges to enable resilient teaching and learning.  

To find out more or to enquire about working together, please email the Cyber Security Team at cyber-security@harrisfederation.org.uk.