British Police Launch CyberAlarm

Businesses across England and Wales will be able to benefit from a free police-led monitoring tool and use it to improve their security and cyber resilience. The UK 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 said the alarm 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 was put in place in June 2020 as a pilot in four regions across England and Wales, Police CyberAlarm has now been given the go ahead to roll out to the remaining regions. Commissioner of City of London Police, Ian Dyson, described Police CyberAlarm as “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,” Businesses and other organisations with a computer network can sign up to use the tool for free. 

The average cost of a cyber attack to a small business in the UK  is around £11,000 and there are thousands of successful attacks every day. Cyber Security should be a priority for every single business no matter how big or small that business is. 

Organisations can register to use the tool by visiting the Police CyberAlarm website and install it using a VMWare Virtual Appliance or as a software installation on a Linux device, which requires CentOS 7 Minimal. The data collected by Police CyberAlarm is accessible only to the Police but may be shared with other law enforcement agencies such as the National Crime Agency and the National Cyber Security Centre.

Members of Police CyberAlarm will become part of the wider UK cyber defence network, sharing collected data with Police for analysis at local, regional and national levels to identify trends, react to emerging threats and identify, pursue and prosecute cyber criminals.

CyberAlarm:       Derbyshire Police:      WhatDoTheyKnow:      ITPro:       

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