The UK Cyber Resilience Bill and the Case for End-to-End Voice Channel Security

What the UK Cyber Resilience Bill Means for Modern Risk Management

The UK Government’s new Cyber Security & Resilience Bill represents one of the most significant updates to the nation’s cyber-regulatory landscape in years. Its objective is clear: to lift the baseline of cyber-resilience across the entire economy and bring the UK into closer alignment with the EU’s NIS2 Directive.

A central part of this shift is the decision to place the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) on a firmer statutory footing. The principles and objectives within CAF, previously encouraged as best practice, are now moving toward mandatory implementation. This gives organisations far greater clarity on what is expected of them and strengthens the ability of regulators to oversee compliance.

Accountability Across Supply Chains

Although final details will be delivered through secondary legislation, one trend is already unmistakable: the scope of regulated organisations is expanding dramatically. Firms that have never been regulated before will be required to adopt structured cyber-security controls, meet heightened reporting obligations, and maintain stronger operational resilience.

This expansion reaches well beyond major Operators of Essential Services. Smaller firms within their supply chains – so-called “managed services”- will now be captured if they provide services that underpin critical functions or involve access to essential systems or data. Many outsourced or third-party providers will fall in scope for the first time, including IT support partners, cloud-connected service providers, contact centres, BPO operations, and providers of security monitoring or incident response. In effect, if an organization manages, supports or has access to the IT environment of an operator of essential services (OES) or of a relevant digital service provider (RDSP), even if it’s a minor one, it is highly likely to be considered a managed service under the new framework.

Data centres are also explicitly included. UK data centres with a capacity of 1MW or more will be subject to the new duties, while enterprise-only data centres (used solely for an organisation’s internal needs) will fall in scope above 10MW. These organisations will be required to notify authorities, demonstrate appropriate risk-management controls, and report significant incidents. The Government has also indicated that these thresholds may be adjusted over time to reflect developments in the market.

Regulatory oversight is evolving in parallel. The Information Commissioner’s Office, which already regulates Relevant Digital Service Providers, will assume responsibility for the newly regulated category of managed services. This shift will bring additional reporting duties, greater scrutiny and new regulatory fees for affected organisations.

The Voice Channel: The Most Overlooked Vulnerability in Cyber Resilience 

Against this backdrop, the role of the voice channel becomes increasingly important. While digital channels have seen continuous investment in authentication, fraud protection, and monitoring, the voice channel has lagged behind, despite being one of the most frequently exploited attack surfaces. The rise of AI-driven social engineering, voice deepfakes, synthetic impersonation, and autonomous AI agents targeting contact centres has amplified the risk significantly. Under the new Bill, regulators will expect voice interactions to be protected to the same standard as online and digital channels, particularly where they involve customer authentication, access to sensitive information, or the initiation of high-risk actions.

Bringing the Voice Channel Up to Cyber-Resilience Standards

This is where ValidSoft provides essential capability. Our privacy-by-design deepfake detection and voice authentication technology delivers the most advanced real-time detection of deepfakes and precision voice identity verification, whilst our See-Say® Voice MFA provides cryptographically bound, immutable, non-repudiable authentication for high-risk transactions (such as P2P payments and processes (such as Zero-Trust PAM/IAM). Together with comprehensive audit and evidential reporting, these solutions align directly with the CAF and NIS2-style expectations around security, monitoring, detection, and incident response.

The message from Government is unambiguous: the UK is entering a new era of cyber accountability. Organisations can no longer overlook the voice channel or treat its security as secondary. Deepfake risks must be addressed, identity must be verified rigorously, and suppliers across the service chain must demonstrate robust controls.

The Cyber Security & Resilience Bill is not simply regulatory housekeeping; it is a structural shift. And the voice channel is now firmly within scope.

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