Cyber and Secure Communications
The cheapest way to weaken a country is to attack it below the threshold of war. Roke is the British technology integrator for defence and national security. Our cyber and secure communications technology and services help our customers understand what an adversary could exploit, assure the infrastructure the country depends on, and keep the UK safe, secure and prosperous, online and off.
The grey zone is always on.
Hostile states are at work on the UK every day, below the threshold that would trigger a conventional response. The targets are our culture, our democratic process, our public systems and the cost of doing business here. Disinformation, influence operations and attacks on critical infrastructure all serve the same aim: a country that is less safe, less secure and less prosperous.
It is cheap. An effect that once took a state’s resources now takes a few smart people, trained and pointed at a problem. AI lowers the cost again, so the volume of attacks rises and so does their complexity. Attack chains run longer and work on people as much as on technology. The threat never pauses, because the technology it exploits changes every day.
Roke has spent seven decades alongside the organisations that defend the UK, and we continuously develop our response for a threat that is always present and always evolving.
We find the vulnerability before the adversary does.
Vulnerability research is the heart of our anticipation. Our engineers analyse devices, applications and software, and they examine the networks and infrastructure our customers rely on. The aim is to understand what an adversary could exploit and how they would go about it. That understanding lets our customers counter the threat and build protective measures that work.
We also look at the technology our customers will want to use next, before they use it. We provide assurance on these so government and the UK can adopt them safely.
We use AI to do this faster and our teams apply it to understand attacks and to accelerate vulnerability research, because an amplifier available to the adversary has to be an amplifier for the defence as well.
We build capability with our customers.
We deliver cyber and secure communications technology and services alongside the most sensitive parts of UK government, as partners embedded in their teams.
Our information assurance and engineering specialists work on our customers’ own systems to make sure they are secure and legally compliant. On the UK’s most sensitive networks that means assurance at the highest level, confirming that the protection is sound and stays sound as their systems change and the threat evolves.
We study how our adversaries apply technology and tradecraft, so our customers can mitigate the most capable actors in the world.
We run some of the largest data processing and analytics systems our customers operate to enable an analyst to find the key piece of information in the most complex and large scale datasets which no team could be expected to read, and direct an operation on it. We supply lawful interception capability to operators and governments, and we build tools and techniques UK policing uses to analyse seized media and take online investigations to prosecution.
Where Electromagnetic Warfare (EW) jams a signal, cyber can disrupt an adversary’s system without them knowing it was touched. We work across both, so a commander has a covert, non-kinetic option alongside the overt one.
We stay with our customers as the threat moves.
The Cyber treat never stands still, so our teams stay. We embed with our customers for years, keep the research running as systems are patched and technology changes, and update what we have built at the pace the threat demands. Our customers keep control of their networks, their data and the decisions made on them, and they keep the people who did the work within reach.
The result is what our customers protect, with us alongside them: the nation’s critical infrastructure, its most sensitive communications, its democratic process and its way of life. The UK becomes a safer place to live and work online because we do this work with our customers every day.
Trusted at the top.
We work with the most sensitive departments of UK government, day in and day out, developing capability on their behalf to stay ahead of the threat. Most of our work we can’t put onto a website, here’s what we can:
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A Home Office-sponsored capability for UK policing that uses AI to classify child sexual abuse material in seized data and take cases to prosecution.
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Some of the largest data analytics systems our customers run, built and operated by Roke.
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Lawful interception capability supplied to operators and governments.
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Tools and techniques for online investigations and the analysis of seized media, delivered for UK policing.
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Assurance work on post-quantum cryptography and on the security of AI, ahead of adoption.
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Early work on secure by design with UK Government’s cyber security authority.
Tell us about the system you need assured, the technology you need to adopt safely, or the adversary you need to understand. We will connect you with the engineers who do this work.
Get in touch
Tell us about the system you need assured, the technology you need to adopt safely, or the adversary you need to understand. We will connect you with the engineers who do this work.
Read our Cyber & secure communications insights
Cyber & Secure Communications: Products & Services
Cyber & Secure Communications – FAQs
Cyber and secure communications is one of Roke’s four capabilities. It covers vulnerability research and reverse engineering, information assurance and secure engineering on our customers’ systems, national-scale data analytics, lawful interception and tools for online investigation. It also covers cyber effects alongside Electromagnetic Warfare (EW), for defence and national security customers.
Grey zone, or sub-threshold, warfare is hostile state activity that stays below the level that would trigger a conventional military response. It uses cyber attack, disinformation, influence operations and economic pressure to weaken a country’s democracy, systems, culture and prosperity. It is cheap, constant and growing, and AI is making it cheaper.
Vulnerability research is the systematic search for weaknesses in software, hardware, devices, applications and networks before an adversary finds them, and the study of how an adversary would exploit them. Roke’s engineers work from the network down to the device, including reverse engineering, and use AI to accelerate the work.
Roke provides information assurance and engineering specialists who work on our customers’ own systems, vulnerability research that tells them what to protect against, and the capabilities that let them do it.
Information assurance is the discipline of confirming that a system protects the information it holds, that the protection is proportionate to the threat, and that the system complies with the law. Roke provides information assurance on some of the UK’s most sensitive networks and systems.
In two ways. We use AI to understand attacks and to accelerate vulnerability research, and we research the security of AI itself, because it opens an attack surface no one has defended before. We also build AI capabilities for national security customers, including the classification of child sexual abuse material for UK policing.
Both are non-kinetic effects on the modern battlefield. EW works on the electromagnetic spectrum and can be overt. Cyber works on an adversary’s systems and is covert, so the target may never know it was touched. Roke works across both and designs them to hand over to each other.
The most sensitive departments of UK government, UK policing, and the communications operators and governments who need lawful interception capability. Much of the work is delivered inside the customer’s own environment, which is why we describe it in general terms here and in detail in person.