NHS Digital, the information and technology body of the U.K. National Health Service, launched a £20 million ($26.98 million) project to boost its security capabilities, the IT arm announced Nov. 27.
Here are four things to know about the information security commitment.
1. The £20 million investment will establish a security operations center that monitors healthcare services across the U.K. These monitoring services will support NHS Digital as it offers guidance to local NHS organizations, officials said.
2. NHS Digital is seeking a security partner to support the monitoring project. The partner organization would offer NHS Digital additional capabilities as needed under a three-to-five-year contract.
"The partnership will provide access to extra specialist resources during peak periods and enable the team to proactively monitor the web for security threats and emerging vulnerabilities," said Dan Taylor, head of the digital data security center at NHS Digital. "It will also allow us to improve our current capabilities in ethical hacking, vulnerability testing and the forensic analysis of malicious software."
3. The security operations center will build on NHS Digital's existing information security services, which include specialist support and data security assessments.
4. The investment follows the worldwide WannaCry ransomware attack that infected more than 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries in May. NHS represented one of the ransomware's most prominent victims, as WannaCry brought down operations for at least 16 NHS facilities.