State-sponsored attempts at stealing sensitive research and information can undermine UK businesses and harm our country’s competitiveness on the world stage.
As part of the Integrated Review Refresh, the government has announced the creation of the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) to help businesses and organisations defend themselves against national security threats.
This new body, which is part of MI5, will increase the UK’s resilience to state threats as well as terrorism, and will play an important part in strengthening our country’s economic security.
NPSA has absorbed the responsibilities of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure but with a broader remit, reflecting the fact that the threats the UK faces today extend far beyond critical national infrastructure.
Advice will be provided in an accessible and informative way so that it can be understood and used by a broad range of private and public sector organisations, including tech start-ups, businesses, events venues and universities.
The National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) is the UK’s National Technical Authority for physical and personnel protective security, maintaining their expertise in counter terrorism as well as state threats.
The body has the mission of: 'Building resilience to national security threats'. The NPSA will help organisations understand the range of threats they and the UK face, for example from terrorism, espionage, and state actors, and importantly what they can do to minimise their risk through how they operate day to day.
The NPSA’s guidance, training, and advice is derived from world-leading research and development programmes, and by MI5’s expert understanding of the threat. Advice is primarily delivered through campaigns and online self-service at www.npsa.gov.uk, alongside their in-person industry engagement. Their work helps keep citizens safe, protects the economy and the UK’s science and technological advantage, as well as the infrastructure upon which daily life depends.
ProtectUK will continue to work with the NPSA to provide updates from this new body and to ensure that businesses and organisations are up-to-date with the latest advice and guidance released. For those looking to access previous CPNI guidance and links from the ProtectUK platform, please note that you should now use the search term ‘NPSA’ to find this related content. If you are having trouble locating a guidance piece you previously had access to, please report it via our feedback link on this page.
