UK and allies publish advice to fix global cyber vulnerabilities

Advice on countering the most publicly known—and often dated—software vulnerabilities has been published for private and public sector organisations worldwide.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have published a joint advisory highlighting 30 vulnerabilities routinely exploited by cyber actors in 2020 and those being exploited in 2021.
In 2021, malicious cyber actors continued to target vulnerabilities in perimeter-type devices. Today’s advisory lists the vendors, products, and CVEs, and recommends that organisations prioritise patching those listed.
NCSC Director for Operations, Paul Chichester, said:
“We are committed to working with allies to raise awareness of global cyber weaknesses – and present easily actionable solutions to mitigate them.
“The advisory published today puts the power in every organisation’s hands to fix the most common vulnerabilities, such as unpatched VPN gateway devices.
“Working with our international partners, we will continue to raise awareness of the threats posed by those that seek to cause harm."
As well as alerting organisations to the threat, this advisory directs public and private sector partners to the support and resources available to mitigate and remediate these vulnerabilities.
Guidance for organisations on how to protect themselves in cyberspace can be found on the NCSC website. Our 10 Steps to Cyber Security collection provides a summary of advice for security and technical professionals.
On the mitigation of vulnerabilities, network defenders are encouraged to familiarise themselves with guidance on establishing an effective vulnerability management process. Elsewhere, the NCSC’s Early Warning Service also provides vulnerability and open port alerts.
CISA Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity, Eric Goldstein, said:
“Organisations that apply the best practices of cyber security, such as patching, can reduce their risk to cyber actors exploiting known vulnerabilities in their networks.
“Collaboration is a crucial part of CISA’s work and today we partnered with ACSC, NCSC and FBI to highlight cyber vulnerabilities that public and private organisations should prioritise for patching to minimise risk of being exploited by malicious actors.”
FBI Cyber Assistant Director, Bryan Vorndran, said:
“The FBI remains committed to sharing information with public and private organisations in an effort to prevent malicious cyber actors from exploiting vulnerabilities.
“We firmly believe that coordination and collaboration with our federal and private sector partners will ensure a safer cyber environment to decrease the opportunity for these actors to succeed.”
Head of the ACSC, Abigail Bradshaw CSC, said:
“This guidance will be valuable for enabling network defenders and organisations to lift collective defences against cyber threats.
“This advisory complements our advice available through cyber.gov.au and underscores the determination of the ACSC and our partner agencies to collaboratively combat malicious cyber activity.”

ACSC’s Critical Infrastructure Uplift Program (CI-UP) will help to protect Australia’s essential services from cyber threats

The ACSC is calling for ACSC Partners to help pilot the Critical Infrastructure Uplift Program (CI-UP). CI-UP will help protect Australia’s essential services from cyber threats by raising the security levels of critical infrastructure organisations. CI-UP is part of the Australian Signals Directorate’s Cyber Enhanced Situational Awareness and Response (CESAR) package and compliments the Australian Government’s ongoing work to protect critical infrastructure security through proposed amendments to the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018.
CI-UP will build knowledge and expertise for critical infrastructure providers to strengthen their cyber defences. CI-UP has been designed to:
- evaluate critical infrastructure cyber security maturity;
- deliver prioritised vulnerability and risk mitigation recommendations; and
- assist partners to implement the recommended risk mitigation strategies.
Critical infrastructure entities that are ACSC Partners can register their interest via the CI-UP form. Following the pilot, all organisations in the critical infrastructure and systems of national significance sectors, as defined in the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018, can register to participate. If you are not currently an ACSC Partners, and wish to participate in the CI-UP, you will first need to register to become an ACSC Partner through the ACSC Partner Hub.