Digital Service Providers. The responsibilities of the CSIRT itself with regard to risk and incident handling have been defined in law as requiring it to; “(a) monitor incidents within the State, (b) provide early warnings, alerts, announcements and dissemination of information about risk and incidents to relevant stakeholders, (c) respond to incidents notified to it under NIS Regulation 18 or 22, (d) provide dynamic risk and incident analysis and situational awareness, (e) participate and co-operate in the CSIRTs network, (f) establish relationships with persons in the private sector to facilitate co-operation with that sector 1”. The CSIRT received its first international accreditation in late 2017, (Trusted Introducer accreditation), signifying that the team had reached a defined level of best practice and maturity. The NCSC has developed a threat intelligence database that is being used to assist Agencies and Departments in protecting their networks. There has also been a comprehensive expansion of the NCSC constituent base to over 130 members. This base now includes Government Departments and Agencies, and key entities across the Financial Sector, Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) providers and other Operators of Essential Services (OES). Since that period, the CSIRT has further developed its incident response capacity by means of an integrated incident response and analytics platform, and a highly augmented system of advisories to constituents across Government and Critical National Infrastructure. Furthermore, the CSIRT has pivoted from a solely reactive stance to a more proactive position. This includes the deployment and use of MISPs (Malware Information Sharing Platform) to share threat intelligence directly with Critical National Infrastructure Providers, and the evolution and use of a series of tools to identify, parse and analyse open source intelligence (OSINT). The CSIRT has also developed, tested and deployed the ‘Sensor’ platform, now operational on the infrastructure of a number of Government Departments, to detect and warn of certain types of threat. The evolution of the NCSC was accompanied by developments in related areas. The 2015 Defence White Paper notes that “… the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has lead responsibilities relating to cyber security” and explained that “The 1 Regulation 10 of S.I. 360 of 2018 21