I would like to understand if the council currently have the below cyber security tools in place. It would also be useful to understand what providers if any currently provide these tools and when any existing contracts are due to expire or to be reviewed.
* Web Security/Filtering
* Cloud Application Security (CASB)
* Email Security
* MFA
Devon County Council (DCC) confirms that we hold the information you have requested. However, we consider this is exempt from disclosure under Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
This is because the Council considers that this information constitutes valuable intelligence, that could be leveraged by a motivated cyber threat actor to inform a successful attack against our infrastructure. We feel that releasing this information would therefore increase the chances of DCC becoming the victim of a cyber-attack.
We have considered the public interest in releasing this information. While we recognise that there is an overriding public interest in openness and transparency, we feel that there is a stronger public interest in the Council maintaining the security and integrity of its IT systems.
We feel that significant weight should be applied to this public interest consideration given the current elevated cyber threat landscape facing public sector organisations. For these reasons we feel that the balance of public interest weighs in favour of withholding this information from disclosure.
* Security Awareness Training
The Council provides a program of data protection and cyber security awareness training using the MetaCompliance platform.