"UK Security Agency to Scan the Country for Bugs"

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has recently launched a new scheme designed to help it better understand how vulnerable UK systems are to cyberattacks to enhance resilience.  The agency’s new internet scanning capability is designed to build a data-driven view of “the vulnerability of the UK.”  The NCSC stated that it will do this by probing any internet-accessible systems hosted in the country for known vulnerabilities, allowing them to understand how exposed these assets are and track remediation over time.  The NCSC noted that they design their requests to collect the smallest amount of technical information required to validate the presence/version and/or vulnerability of a piece of software.  They also designed requests to limit the amount of personal data within the response.  The agency hopes that the data collected will help to: better understand the vulnerability and security of the UK as a whole, advise system owners about their security posture on a day-to-day basis, and respond faster to incidents like a widely exploited zero-day vulnerability

Infosecurity reports: "UK Security Agency to Scan the Country for Bugs"