Government Communications Security Bureau wins Ipanz award

Government Communications Security Bureau director-general Andrew Hampton is pleased the GCSB has been recognised with an award. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The usually shy Government Communications Security Bureau is happy to publicly share its success after winning an award for its cyber security services.

The GCSB has won the Deloitte Institute of Public Administration of New Zealand (Ipanz) award for building trust and confidence in government for its Cortex initiative.

"By the very nature of the work that we do, much of it needs to be carried out in secret. To be able to do this work and achieve our mission we need strong public trust and confidence," GCSB director-general Andrew Hampton said.

"While many New Zealanders are more familiar with our intelligence-gathering work, the GCSB also has an important role to play in providing information assurance and cyber security services.

"I hope that this award helps to further demonstrate a significant turnaround in how the work of the bureau is perceived and I am hugely proud of that," Hampton said in a statement.
 
The award recognised the efforts of the GCSB team, particularly its staff in the National Cyber Security Centre, to build and deliver Cortex and to develop and sustain the relationships that enabled it to help protect the information and data of New Zealand's most significant organisations.

Cortex helped prevent cyber threats to these organisations, saving an estimated $39.47 million in harm in the 2016/17 year.

"The ongoing delivery of our cyber security services requires us to continually demonstrate we are responsible stewards of our customers' information, both to customers, and to the range of oversight bodies we are also accountable to," Hampton said.

The GCSB is preparing to roll out its malware defence system after a successful pilot.

The pilot showed the Malware-Free Networks programme had the potential to disrupt a significant amount of malicious cyber activity, providing an extra layer of protection in addition to Cortex.