WARP Newsletter 9 - February 2008

WARPLOG Issue 9 | February 2008.

 Welcome to the first Newsletter of 2008

I would like to wish you a rather belated Happy New Year and good wishes for a successful 2008! As the old adage goes, “better late than never” means we have even more news to bring you in this issue. There are exciting developments just below the surface in a number of areas…..they are all listed below. In the past I have drafted the newsletter mainly on my own but a more efficient way is to invite submissions from anyone with news on WARPs and then I can add value as an Editor. I am therefore grateful for the contributions you see in this latest newsletter and if anyone wants to draft future items please email them to

Most importantly, if you know of anyone who wants to run a WARP but is afraid to dip their toe in the water, then we are offering for a limited period, a FREE TRIAL of the new WARP Managed Service Platform (WARP MSP) to selected communities. There is an article on this service in this newsletter and if you are interested in applying please email with a description of your community. This will only run to the end of March, after which some modest charges will be necessary, so you’ll need to move fast !

Peter B

WARP Programme Director

WARP Trust

In July last year we reported on an initiative to create a WARP Trust which was to be a not-for-profit legal entity to take over the management of the WARP programme. The two critical success factors in the business plan for sustainability were:

• The development of a New Software Suite delivering centralised services which will drive down costs and reduce start-up time for WARP operators.
• Focused effort on a few chosen sectors to maximise initial take-up and reduce the time to achieve commercial sustainability

The Technology Strategy Board reviewed the plan in September 2007 and in November we were told that although they considered the plan well thought-through and they supported the WARP programme, as they had been subject to organizational changes it did not fit their remit anymore so they could not grant any funds.

Such challenges merely create new opportunities of course, and we reviewed our targets and ambitions, and decided to go ahead regardless, without the funding. Since that time CPNI has been working on ‘Plan B’ and now have a way forward which still includes the two critical success factors mentioned above. An alternative software solution has been developed (WARP MSP) which is now being trialled with the Law Society, (one of the key market sectors identified). You may be forgiven for reflecting that the Legal sector is an appropriate place for a trial !

The WARP Operators Forum (WOF) are also reviewing the WARP Trust memorandum and articles of association to assess the feasibility of the WOF being used as the basis for a new WARP Trust legal entity.

All this is very encouraging and I look forward to working with you all to make the role of the WOF more pivotal in managing the WARP programme, and rolling out new WARPs at an increasing rate (keep checking the WARP Register).

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Memorandum & Articles - WOF

At the last WARP Operators Forum (WOF) - an action was taken to circulate the WARP Trust memorandum and articles of association and for members to comment on the feasibility of the WOF becoming a legal entity. This could still be called the WARP Trust but does not have to be. Those interested in becoming a Director of the governing body were asked to send an email with comments, to There has already been confirmation that CPNI will be a founding member, as agreed in the original WARP Trust proposal and a number of other organizations have provisionally agreed to be involved.

New WARP registrations

MODWARP

Many of you may be aware that MOD has long had a network of ‘WARPs’ which were not part of the WARP scheme. To resolve this discrepancy, it was agreed that MODCERT would become a Registered WARP, and the dozen or so subsidiary units will be considered as sub-WARPs to MODCERT. In January 2008, the MOD registered as a WARP, based on their existing mandatory Alert, Warning and Response (AWR) process. This process ensures that all information security events and weaknesses associated with Defence computer information security are communicated in a manner allowing timely action to be taken.  MODCERT (MODWARP) is the controlling authority for the MOD AWR process.

LS1WARP (The Law Society)

The Law Society’s e-business programme covers a number of transformational government initiatives including Criminal Justice IT and e-conveyancing which could provide suitable opportunities for WARPs. Their information security work gives support to solicitors by, for instance, providing advice to the profession and running regional events. This WARP (LS1WARP) is a pilot aimed at a small section of the legal community in London and, if successful could lead to many more Law Society WARPs (LS2WARP etc), each addressing specific needs of the Law Society's membership. These needs may be based on geographic location and/or business or membership fit. All the LS1WARP services will be provided using the WARP Trust Managed Service Platform. LS1WARP will be operated by a member of The Law Society and include face to face meetings with LS1WARP members.

Bubbling Under

Things are happening in Ireland, and we can expect some good news from there soon, and there is continuing international interest from Finland, Belgium, New Zealand, and elsewhere. CESG’s endorsement of WARPs for Local Government ( http://www.govcertuk.gov.uk/warps.shtml ) may be picked up in Central Government too in due course, so the prospects for a lot more WARPs this year are very good.

A New Approach to New WARPs ( Kevin Townsend):

The first of our two new websites is live: www.quantumlabs.org. The second, www.quantasecurity.com, the site that will house one or more WARPs, goes live imminently. The relevance of the first is that it contains QL Wildfire. This is a technology that uses honey pots and crawlers to discover, analyse and catalogue current, active threats on the Internet. The results are available to the WARP community through Quanta Security.

The first WARP on quantasecurity.com has been approved but not yet announced nor launched. It uses proprietary software built on open source systems, and is tightly integrated into the site itself. Access controls ensure that WARP members alone have access to the WARP's forum. This is the area for social and business networking, information sharing and problem reporting.

RSS feeds are used as an alternative to filtered email alerts. The site has an Alerts section. This has specific sub-section/pages for different systems. The RSS facility allows visitors to generate a feed for any page on the site. In this way, a Vista user can subscribe to Vista alerts; a Red Hat user can subscribe to Red Hat alerts.

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WARP engagement (Matt Smith, Information Security for London)

It is human nature how it only takes one big incident to scare people. Since a certain couple of CD-ROMs went missing, interest in information security has increased dramatically and, here in London, we have had many questions asked about data encryption. Our forums have been a good way for the members to share good practice advice on encryption as well as looking at the people side of things. This has also caused us to think about aggregated data - the sensitivity might be low when you are talking about single pieces of information, but when you bring vast amounts together like a jigsaw, the sensitivity increases.

Our last forum broke the records in terms of attendance where we had 19 boroughs represented and that was with some regulars missing. So thank you HMRC.

You can read a case study on advice brokering at:

http://www.warp.gov.uk/WARPServices/LCWARPcasestudyadviceBrokeringv1.1.pdf

WARP Operators Forum (WOF) – comment from the Chairman (Tony Proctor)

This is a critical time in the development of the WARP initiative. As such, it is important that there is regular communication in place between WARP operators. The WARP Operators Forum (WOF) is the primary facilitator for this discussion. In many ways the Forum is an extension of the Local WARP Forums. It is the place to share not only experiences but also developments, problems and solutions. There is a lot of interest in WARP and the Forum can assist with capitalising on this in a coordinated manner and developing the interest into action. It is equally important that all WARP operators have the opportunity to contribute to and comment on activity. This is achieved most effectively via the Operators Forum and the associated Bulletin Board that is now operation. It is crucial that all Operators endeavour to use the Forum and hence attend the quarterly meetings. Plans are also being prepared to provide a WOF website, details of which will be included in the next newsletter.

WARP Member Benefits - A New Guide:

WARP operators are still facing challenges in attracting potential members to the WARP programme, especially to those that have outsourced their IT system support and who, as a result, maintain it is not necessary to be part of a WARP. So to help out, a new, more targeted document has been drafted outlining the benefits and why these people should consider signing up to WARPs. The final document will be published soon in the Marketing section of the WARP website: http://www.warp.gov.uk/Marketing.htm#S3

New WARP Registration Form:

Feedback from previous WARP applicants has suggested that completion of the WARP registration form, which has been issued in several versions since the beginning of the programme, can be a little daunting!

With this in mind, the form has been revised to make it far simpler to fill in and easier to process. The new form will use tick-boxes instead of free field responses wherever possible. It is hoped eventually to make this an on-line form.

The new form is now available in the WARP Toolbox on the WARP website.

http://www.warp.gov.uk/BusinessCase.htm#S6

The WARP M anaged Service Platform (WARP MSP)

In the early days of the WARP project, support from Microsoft enabled the development of an application to support the Filtered Warnings WARP service. This product evolved over time to become a sophisticated system that supports the requirements of Filtered Warnings very well, but does not directly help with Advice Brokering and Trusted Sharing. The Filtered Warnings Application (FWA), as it is known, also requires a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server system on which to run, something that can be difficult for potential WARP communities to implement quickly.

In order to allow more WARP communities to get off the ground quickly, CPNI has created a hosted platform that integrates the latest version of FWA with Microsoft Sharepoint 2007. The combined platform provides features that support all three of the WARP services in a single web based environment. In addition some content is provided, in the form of a feed of advisories from CSIRTUK, and some good practice information sourced from CPNI, BERR, CESG and the Information Commissioner’s Office. New WARPs wishing to benefit from the WARP M anaged Service Platform can trial the system within their prospective community, allowing the full benefits of a WARP trusted community to be quickly realized. A guide for the WARP MSP is available at: http://www.warp.gov.uk/Index/indexfwasoftware.htm

Looking beyond a trial, the integrated Sharepoint/FWA solution can be made available for a WARP to run on their own infrastructure, or the WARP M anaged Service Platform can be provided by a hosting company.

A limited number of free trials are being made available early in 2008 and if you would like to apply or want more information please contact After this time, a charge will be levied to cover the costs of this service. Exact prices have yet to be determined but the aim is to leverage economies of scale so it should always be less than a single WARP provider could do it in-house.

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‘UNIRAS’ Alerts are changing

As many of you will know, UNIRAS transformed last year into CSIRTUK (in CPNI) and GovCERTUK (in CESG), but CSIRTUK continued to produce the old ‘UNIRAS’ alerts and briefings, albeit rebranded. You should be aware that this service is now available as an RSS feed on the CPNI website. You should also be aware that the email versions will be discontinued soon. There is however a special RSS service available to WARPs which supplies a full version of the advisories, with an XML structure attached, which makes it very easy to process and reformat the information into your WARP’s format. The WARP Trust MSP uses this special feed, but it is available to all WARPs even if you don’t use the MSP service. Contact if you wish to take advantage of this fully structured feed.

Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW):

The ICAEW were identified as a key sector in the WARP Trust business plan. It is therefore encouraging to see a nice feature on WARPs in Chartech, the official Chartered Accountants Association magazine that goes out to thousands of members every month. The ICAEW is looking at the feasibility of creating a WARP pilot trial for chartered accountant firms over the next few months. If this goes ahead it will be based on the WARP Managed Service Platform.

WARP Contact List for Local Government:

Following the last WARP Operators’ Forum, it was thought existing Local Government WARPs would be in a good position to offer guest accounts to Councils not in their own region to help them get started on the path to their own regional WARP as this had worked well in the past. CESG will also endorse this facility to refer any of their Local Government contacts who may be interested in joining a WARP. A new contact list has been provided as a new page on the WARP website at http://www.warp.gov.uk/Index/LGcontacts.htm which is accessed via the ‘Joining a WARP’ link on the left hand menu. This will direct those interested in Local Government WARPs to a regional WARP who will be pleased to help them and perhaps provide a Guest account.

The 4 th Annual WARP Forum:

It’s that time of the year again to pencil in the WARPs Annual Forum into your diaries. To continue from last year’s successful Forum, this year’s gathering of those who are ‘Serious about WARPs’ will take place in London. We will announce the venue and the date in the next few months, but we are hoping for an early June event.

This year we are looking for commercial sponsors, so if you know anyone who would like an opportunity to share in the WARP experience, please ask them to read the sponsorship opportunities document at:

http://www.warp.gov.uk/Index/Forum/indexannualforum.htm and then email if they are interested.

Last year we were very fortunate to have secured the Director of CPNI to open the proceedings, demonstrating that top-level support for the WARP programme has survived the evolution of NISCC into the new CPNI organisation ( www.cpni.gov.uk). We also had a stimulating presentation from a long-standing supporter of the WARP programme, Stuart Okin of Accenture, as well as a wealth of international speakers and delegates, with no less than five very welcome visitors from IPA and Hitachi in Japan. This year’s event will have a slightly different look and feel, but will be international, unique, and unmissable. Make sure that everyone interested is signed up for this Newsletter (see below).

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