Enhancing the resilience of Telecommunications a partnership with - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Enhancing the resilience of Telecommunications

… a partnership with RAYNET

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Overview

Conversation in two parts:

1: Civil Contingencies Secretariat

► Who we are and what we do

look in more depth work we are doing in a specific area

2: Resilient telecommunications

► Mitigating the effects of major incidents in the UK

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Overview

Conversation in two parts:

1: Civil Contingencies Secretariat

► Who we are and what we do

look in more depth work we are doing in a specific area

2: Resilient telecommunications

► Mitigating the effects of major incidents in the UK

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Introduction

• Civil Contingencies Secretariat sits within the

Cabinet Office at the heart of government

• To enhance the UK's ability to:

► prepare for ► respond to and ► recover from emergencies

• Work in partnership with:

► government departments ► devolved administrations and ► key stakeholders

• Chronology

► established July 2001 ► Civil Contingencies Act (2004); Regulations (2005) ► Act Enhancement Programme commenced 2008

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What we get up to … preparing for emergencies

• Spotting trouble, assessing its nature and providing

warning

► “horizon scanning” ► assessment capability

• Identifying the hazards that might pose a problem

► assessing our level of concern ► communicating with Ministers through the

National Risk Assessment (NRA)

• Assessing our level of preparedness

► capability assessments

• Enhancing capability to respond

► specific programmes, for example “New Dimension”

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What we get up to … preparing for emergencies

• Training

► Emergency Planning College at Easingwold

• Exercising

► pan-government exercise co-ordination

• COBR response arrangements

► guided by the NRA

• Guidance on response arrangements – CONOPS

► local ► regional and ► national

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Response arrangements

SIGNIFICANT – level 1 SERIOUS level 2

Impact Geographical extent

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What we get up to … responding to emergencies

• Providing central co-ordination

► in extremis COBR ► assisting departments come to terms with their

responsibilities

• Identifying and mitigating consequences

► “Grand Strategic” ► looking forward and broader ► thinking the “unthinkable”

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Part 2: Overview

Conversation in two parts:

1: Civil Contingencies Secretariat

► Who we are and what we do

look in more depth work we are doing in a specific area

2: Resilient telecommunications

► Mitigating the effects of major incidents in the UK

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Enhancing resilience - Overview

• Resilience arrangements in the UK
• Context for a resilience agenda

► the changing landscape ► are we talking communications or telecommunications? ► just paying lip service? ► the wake-up calls

• Resilience … just another Whitehall weasel word?

► is this Information Assurance? ► the National Risk Assessment process ► a framework for testing your resilience

• Our approach to enhancing resilience of responder’s

communications

► Five Guiding Principles

Resilience arrangements in the UK

• National policy and strategy lead

rests in Cabinet Office, London

► responsible for the legislative instrument

the Civil Contingencies Act (2004)

• Implementation is devolved to:

► England ► Scotland ► Wales

• Within England, Scotland and Wales

there are local groups focused on enhancing resilience of responders communications Complicated as a consequence of our Devolved Administrations …

Wales England Scotland

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Context for a resilience agenda

• The changing landscape

► communications are now a commodity rapidly achieving the

standing of a utility

► ECN decommissioned (Aug 2005) ► all computers communicate all communicators compute ► platform and technological diversity is diminishing ► society’s affair with the mobile (GSM / UMTS) ‘phone

• Do you now need to be an expert to communicate?
• Telecommunications are a fundamental enabler

underpinning the effective response to any emergency

► implicit in the UK Civil Contingencies Act (2004)

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Resilient telecomms: the wake-up calls

• Telecommunications have been cited as a concern in

response to a number recent incidents including:

► flooding: Boscastle, UK (August, 2004) ► fire at oil storage depot: Buncefield, UK (December 2005) ► terrorist bomb attacks: London, UK (July 2005) ► flooding following hurricane Katrina: New Orleans, USA

(August, 2005)

but …

• In each incident, the cause of degradation or failure

has been different …

Flooding (Boscastle, UK)

August, 2004

Fire at a major oil storage depot (Buncefield, UK)

December 2005

Terrorist bombs on public transport (London, UK)

July, 2005

Flooding following hurricane Katrina (New Orleans, USA)

August, 2005

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Resilient communications …

• Able to absorb or mitigate the effects of disruption to

normal life in the UK

• Events or circumstances such as:

► natural events for example flooding ► human intervention for example an electrical power failure

• r terrorist incident
• National Risk Assessment processes

► identified and assessed a number of scenarios ► some could affect telecommunications

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National Risk Assessment processes

• Annually, approximately 80 scenarios are reviewed for

applicability over a 5-year time horizon

► departmental (BIS, Cabinet Office) ► subject specialists (CPNI, Security Service, GCHQ)

• Each scenario is assessed and scored

► relative impact (limited … catastrophic) ► relative likelihood of occurrence (low … high)

• Risk is used to ‘drive’ the capabilities enhancement

programme

• Each scenario is visualised on a conventional national

risk matrix

• Used to develop Planning Assumptions

► augmented with input Local Risk Register ► framework against which resilience can be tested

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Planning Assumptions

• Provide a useful framework for testing arrangements

► derived from the scores ► need to be adapted to local circumstances

• Useful for the purpose of planning for Business

Continuity

• Published annually as Generic Challenges to Business

Continuity

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Generic Challenges to Business Continuity

• 1. Large-scale temporary absence of staff
• 2. Permanent or long-term loss of staff
• 3. Denial of access and displaced persons
• 4. Disruption to transport
• 5. Disruption of mains water and sewerage
• 6. Disruption to oil and fuel supply
• 7. Disruption to gas supply
• 8. Disruption to mains electricity
• 9. Disruption to electronic communications

… for more information visit: www.preparingforemergencies.gov.uk/business/generic_cha llenges/index.shtm

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• 9. Disruption to electronic communications
• Background thinking

► physical damage to infrastructure – cabling and

‘exchanges’, base stations, microwave links

► severe weather ► malicious activities

• Direct consequences

► unavailability of public telecommunication services in a

region for up to 5 days

► unavailability of communications networks (including the

PSTN) locally for up to 3 days affecting up to 150,000 people

► unavailability or severe disruption to the Internet (world-wide

web and email) and mobile phone network

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Enhancing resilience of telecommunications

Focussed on the responder community …

• Privileged access schemes

► fixed and mobile telecommunications

• Airwave – secure mobile telecommunications for use

by the Emergency Services

► use outside the Emergency Services

• HITS – the High Integrity Telecommunications

System

• NRE – The National Resilience Extranet
• Five Guiding Principles for enhancing

telecommunications resilience

► assist in providing focus in this complex environment

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• Emphasis tends to be placed on the technical

solutions

► such as pagers or mobile telephones

• Consider processes and people issues

► such as agreed protocols that make conference calls work

smoothly

• Consider structural issues

► such as the way we organise ourselves to respond to

emergencies

• There is no silver bullet to enhancing the resilience
• f telecommunications

► all three components should command attention and ► recognition that none should be considered in isolation

• 1. Look beyond the technical solutions

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• 2. Identify and prioritise communication activities
• Resources are invariably constrained – make the

best use of them

• Identify the critical communication activities that

underpin response arrangements to emergencies

► an 'activity' is essentially 'what we do' ► critical activities are those that are essential to an effective

response

• For critical activities concentrate on the underlying

need to communicate

► assess basic 'technology free' requirements

• Review your arrangements

► they are not static for long

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• Consider the technical means to enable

communication

► with the objective of increasing overall diversity of

telecommunications

• Can be difficult to assess the true technical diversity

► as a consequence of the inherent dependency of one

technical solution on another

► Guidance is available at:

http://www.ukresilience.gov.uk/preparedness/resilient_ telecommunications/enhancing.aspx

• 3. Ensure diversity of your technical solutions

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• 4. Adopt layered fall-back arrangements
• No technical solution is going to be available all

the time

► availability is a consequence of the reliability of the

system and the ability to cope with congestion

• Adopting a layered fall-back approach to selecting

technical solutions helps mitigate unavailability

► a fall-back solution may not necessarily provide the same

'richness' of communication

► the use of certain technical solutions solely for

contingency use can result in unanticipated consequences that reduce their effectiveness – unfamiliar procedures, flat batteries

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Interoperability is not without difficulties …

• Don’t assume technical interoperability

► ‘gateways’ are often taken for granted ► adopt open standards - National Numbering Scheme that

provides seamless communications

• Structural interoperability

► organise to facilitate interoperability

• Procedural interoperability becomes increasingly

important with point-to-multipoint communications

► agreed protocols - call-signs; use of abbreviations ► radio discipline - keep communications short and to the point ► agreed procedures - managing conference calls: new arrivals;

current participants; introductions; current speaker

• 5. Plan to share and exchange information

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Key role for RAYNET

• Your unique culture

► huge enthusiasm to assist in responding to emergencies ► overwhelming can-do attitude

• Capability

► technical diversity ► increasing range of services available ► extends far beyond fall-back arrangements

• Interoperability with other responders

► speaking the same language ► exercising and working together especially Local Authorities

and 2 (National Communications) Signal Brigade

► working with Local Resiliance Forum (LRF)

Telecommunications Sub-Groups (TSGs)

Hugely valuable to have partners like RAYNET that can be counted upon to respond Thank You What can we do for you?

Dr Nigel P Brown

nigel.brown@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk

www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ ukresilience/ preparedness/ resilient_telecommunications.aspx