Why Every UK Organisation Should Be Using The NCSC’s Early Warning Service

At Stripe OLT, we talk about cyber awareness a lot – but for us, it isn’t something that starts and ends in October. It’s every day life for our SOC.

We see first-hand how quickly the landscape shifts. Microsoft’s Digital Defence Report 2024 highlights a stark reality – password-based attacks have surged by more than tenfold in just a year, with Microsoft now blocking an average of 7,000 password attacks every second across its platforms.

That’s not an abstract number. It reflects what we see daily in our SOC: attackers are faster, more automated, and more persistent than ever. And while the headlines focus on large enterprise attacks, SMEs continue to face the same threats, often without the visibility or resources they need to detect early warning signs.

When attacks move this fast, time-to-detect is crucial.

The Power of Free Threat Intelligence

That’s why I’m constantly surprised by how many UK organisations, haven’t signed up to the NCSC’s Early Warning service.

It’s completely free for UK Businesses.

And it’s one of the simplest ways to gain visibility into whether your organisation has ongoing or undetected malicious activity.

What does it do?

It takes just minutes to register, and the data you receive is sourced directly from government and trusted public feeds.

Why it matters?

Throughout my career, I’ve worked with security teams of every maturity level, and one thing remains constant – Early Warning won’t prevent an attack, but it could be the reason you catch it early. It can tip you off to an unnoticed misconfiguration, a compromised asset, or an attacker probing your network perimeter.

And in an age where the average dwell time of a threat actor inside a network is measured in weeks – every day matters.

Combine Intelligence with Proactive Action

For many, security needs to be simple – and that means at the very least, you need to combine the fundamentals with smart, proactive layers of defence.

This isn’t just another box to tick. It’s a strategic opportunity to gain early situational awareness.

If I could give you one bit of advice to takeaway during cyber awareness month – don’t miss what’s free and effective. If you haven’t registered with the early warning system yet – do it today.

Sign up for the NCSC’s Early Warning service

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Free intelligence like NCSC’s Early Warning service is a great start – but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. For complete visibility, continuous monitoring, and 24/7 response, get in touch with our experts today.