# Active Cyber Defence and National Cyber Strategy

Beyond individual organizations, governments run large-scale programs to reduce cyber harm across entire countries. Here's how active defence and national strategy fit together.

Most cybersecurity[↗](/cybersecurity) advice is about what one person or one organization can do. But governments and national agencies also run large programs that reduce cyber harm across a whole country at once. This approach is often called **active cyber defence**.

## What "active cyber defence" means

Active cyber defence means coordinated, often automated measures that make common attacks less effective at scale, instead of leaving every organization to defend itself alone. A helpful comparison is public health: individual hygiene matters, but so do clean water systems and vaccination programs that protect everyone at once.

| Typical measure | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Blocking known-malicious domains | Stops harmful web addresses at the national internet level |
| Takedown programs | Removes phishing↗ sites and fake websites that pretend to be trusted brands |
| Shared threat intelligence↗ | Warns organizations about active attack campaigns before they are individually targeted |

## Why this matters even if you are not a government agency

These programs quietly reduce the number of attacks that ever reach people and businesses. A phishing site taken down before it spreads never produces the emails that would have landed in your inbox. It also explains why reporting phishing and scams matters: those reports often feed directly into national takedown and blocking efforts. When you report a scam message, you may be helping to protect thousands of other people.

[Recognizing and Avoiding Online ScamsFake messages, "act now" pressure, and convincing lookalike websites, learn the common tricks scammers use and how to protect yourself.](/recognizing-and-avoiding-online-scams)

## Cyber strategy: the bigger picture

A national cyber strategy sets priorities for government, critical infrastructure, and often the wider economy. It typically covers three questions:

- Which sectors count as critical infrastructure and need stricter protection?

- How will the country develop cybersecurity skills and talent?

- How will incidents affecting national interests be coordinated and reported?

## Mitigation as an ongoing discipline

**Mitigation** is the practical work of reducing the impact or likelihood of a threat once it is known. It differs from prevention (stopping it entirely) and response (reacting after it happens).

| Approach | Goal | Example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Prevention | Stop the threat from happening | Blocking a harmful website before anyone visits it |
| Mitigation | Reduce how likely or how damaging it is | Backups that limit the damage if ransomware↗ gets in |
| Response | React after it happens | Isolating an infected computer and restoring from backup↗ |

Good mitigation is layered: no single control stops every attack, but each layer lets fewer through and limits the damage from the ones that get in.

## What organizations can take from this

- Report phishing and scams to the proper national reporting channel. It helps defence at a scale beyond your own organization.

- Follow sector-specific guidance if you work in a regulated or critical industry.

- Remember that no organization defends alone: you benefit from, and contribute to, a much larger shared effort.

> Good personal and organizational habits and national-scale defence work together. One reduces your own exposure; the other reduces how many threats exist in the first place.