The VRI will create a parallel program designed to improve discovery and sharing of critical insights.
The UK’s NCSC has launched a vulnerability research initiative (VRI) in order to strengthen its research efforts with industry partners.
The NCSC statement said “developing deep understanding and expertise of technologies, security mitigations and products takes time” and with constant technology growth vulnerability research is getting harder.
Whilst the agency already conducts internal vulnerability research, the launch of VRI will create a parallel program designed to improve discovery and sharing of critical insights with the community more expeditiously.
The mission of the VRI is to strengthen the UK’s ability to carry out vulnerability research. “We work with the best external vulnerability researchers to deliver deep understanding of security on a wide range of the technologies we care about,” it said. “The external VRI community also supports us in having tools and tradecraft for vulnerability discovery.”
Nick Jones, global head of research at Reversec, called the move positive, saying it is great to see the NCSC forging closer links with the industry and independent researchers. "Many of the best vulnerability researchers work in the private sector, and engaging them in this way brings an opportunity for them to positively contribute to UK cyber resilience with less of the restrictions and overhead typically involved in government cyber work," he said.
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Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
