ISNorthEast

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Information Security for the North East – the North East’s public sector WARP

Terms of Reference
ISNorthEast membership application form

ISNorthEast brings together the governance, assurance and security professionals from public sector organisations in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham and the Tees Valley in a trusted community.

It allows them to get together on a regular basis to share good practice, exchange views and address information assurance and cyber security issues facing local public service organisations that could potentially be affecting everyone.

Membership is open to information security and information assurance officers from non-profit public service organisations in the north east region and their outsourced delivery partners and is free of charge. Members from organisations outside the north east region may be admitted at the forum’s discretion.

ISNorthEast holds half-day meetings every other month in a central location where common issues are discussed, sometimes with invited expert speakers. In addition to meetings, members receive a daily round ups of threats, vulnerabilities and relevant news stories.

Critically, members have a mechanism to immediately alert each other of real threats being encountered in a sort of ‘neighbourhood watch’ for public data and systems.

ISNorthEast has a presence on the CiSP national cyber security platform and its members contribute to wider discussions on the platform including in the North East Region CiSP Group.

Member Benefits

Advice Brokering

Regular meetings.
A secure online collaboration space to support discussion and knowledge sharing.
Information security news stories and developments curated from a number of different sources distributed as a daily email newsletter.
Best practice shared with other local authority WARPs.

Trusted Sharing

Members share information about security incidents anonymised if required, so that everyone can benefit from lessons learned.
Access to information from other public sector WARPs.
Councils must report incidents to CESG (the UK National Technical Authority); WARPs are the primary interface between the two.

Critical Alerts

Members notify each other of critical issues using an online messaging solution.

Warnings

Notifications and alerts on viruses, malware and software vulnerabilities are curated from a number of different sources including other local authority WARPs and distributed by email.

Current Members include:

Local Government (councils)	Durham County Council Hartlepool Borough Council Middlesbrough Council Newcastle Upon Tyne City Council North Tyneside Council Northumberland County Council Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council South Tyneside Council Sunderland City Council Xentrall ICT Services (Stockton BC & Darlington BC)
Local Government (other)	Engie (North Tyneside Council) ICT in Schools Team – South Tyneside Council NEPO North East Combined Authority North Eastern ICT Partnership North of Tyne Combined Authority Tees Valley Combined Authority Transport NorthEast
Passenger Transport Executive	Nexus
Fire	County Durham & Darlington Fire and Rescue Service Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service Tyne and Wear Fire & Rescue
Central Government	Department of Work and Pensions Homes England NCSC North East Local Enterprise Partnership
Health	County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust NHS Blood and Transplant NHS Business Services Authority North of England Commissioning Support Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Sunderland and South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust Tees, Esk and Wear Valley – NHS Trust The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Education	Durham University Education Partnership North East Newcastle University Teesside University University of Sunderland Newcastle College Group
Police	Cleveland Police Durham Constabulary North East Regional Cybercrime Unit Northumbria Police
Out of Area	Calderdale Council