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Ciaran Martin, the founding CEO of the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said his biggest regret was that the centre did not recognise the potency of organised cybercrime quickly enough while it was being established. He made the reported remarks during a keynote at the (ISC)² Security Congress in October 2022.
What did Ciaran Martin say the NCSC underestimated?
Martin said the NCSC should have given more attention sooner to systematic organised crime. IT Pro reported him saying: “But then you look at all the harm done and we underestimated the potency of systematic organised crime often hosted in hostile jurisdictions like Russia, but not directly controlled by them,” (IT Pro, 24 October 2022).
The qualification at the end is important: Martin’s reported comment distinguishes criminal groups operating from hostile jurisdictions from groups directly controlled by those states. It does not say that Russia directly controlled the criminals he was discussing.
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According to IT Pro’s account, the NCSC’s institutional history and relationship with GCHQ had encouraged a focus on major state threats. Martin’s reflection was that this emphasis meant the centre was slower to appreciate the harm systematic criminal groups could cause.
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When and where did he make the remarks?
Martin made the remarks at a Cybersecurity Insights keynote during the (ISC)² Security Congress. The organiser’s speaker listing identifies him as the NCSC’s founding CEO and dates the session to 11 October 2022. IT Pro published its report on 24 October 2022.
The quotation is available here through IT Pro’s report. The organiser’s listing confirms Martin’s keynote and its date, but does not provide a transcript or recording; the wording above is therefore attributed to Martin as reported by IT Pro.
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