Supporting organisations to build cyber resilience
We help organisations of national significance understand their cyber security risk and provide guidance for managing it. We engage with organisations in the public and private sectors to increase their cyber resilience.
We also publish reports for customers about specific vulnerabilities, mitigations, and cyber security best practice.
We facilitate information exchanges where participants can discuss cyber security challenges in a confidential and trusted environment. These exchanges involve organisations from a range of sectors.
Cyber defence
We offer defensive tools and capabilities to consenting organisations. We seek out innovative ways to provide threat information to organisations that supply IT or network services to New Zealanders.
We tailor these services to meet the network configuration and risk profile of each organisation. Our defences aim to keep customers ahead of sophisticated, advanced and persistent threats.
If malicious cyber activity is detected in one customer’s network, we can derive information from the incident and use it to mitigate the threat to other customers.
Malware Free Networks
Malware Free Networks is a threat detection and disruption service. This service provides near-real-time threat intelligence that reflects the current malicious activity targeting New Zealand organisations.
VIP is a vulnerability detection and alerting service. It helps our customers to understand both the threat landscape and their ‘attack surface’, and to take action to protect themselves against threat actors attempting to use cyber security vulnerabilities for malicious purposes.
Incident response
When cyber incidents happen, our 24/7 co-ordination and response team help organisations respond and recover. Our response supplements support from commercial providers, and can include a range of services.
Government information security leadership
The Director-General of the GCSB is the Government Chief Information Security Officer (GCISO) - the Government’s system lead for information security (InfoSec). We support the GCISO by providing expert InfoSec guidance, facilitating an uplift in government security practices, and helping to raise New Zealand’s overall cyber resilience.
We also develop the New Zealand Information Security Manual (NZISM), which is the New Zealand Government’s manual on information assurance and information systems security.
Regulatory functions
We administer the network security provisions of the Telecommunications Interception Capability and Security Act 2013 (or TICSA), and we work with network operators to identify security risks in network changes they propose under the TICSA. We also conduct risk assessments relating to New Zealand’s space industry, and help to examine certain foreign investment proposals from a national security perspective.
Support for major events
We support the cyber security of major events by evaluating and preparing for cyber threats from state-sponsored actors, issue-motivated groups and criminals. Planning for major events involves preparing for the possibility that a cyber security incident could cause disruption and reputational harm.
Secure technology
Encryption is the process of scrambling or coding data so it can be read only by someone with the means to return it to its original state. Our Cryptographic Solutions & Development unit provides high-grade encryption products and support to government agencies and selected commercial entities.
Our Technical Counter-Surveillance Unit helps ensure the Government’s most sensitive communications are not intercepted or compromised. We provide technical security and emanations security.