Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus - Why they are important for the security of your business

What is Cyber Essentials?

A government backed, effective scheme that helps you protect your business, no matter what size, against a range of the most common cyber-attacks.

As we know, cyber attacks present themselves in many different ways, and attackers are becoming increasingly successful in gaining unauthorised access to confidential data.

The following two levels of certification are designed to help you prevent these attacks.

Cyber Essentials:

This is a self-assessment option that gives you protection against a wide variety of the most common cyber-attacks. This is incredibly important, as vulnerability to basic attacks can make you stand out as a target for more in-depth unwanted attention from cyber criminals.

Cyber criminals are looking for companies that do not have the Cyber Essentials technical controls in place. This self-assessment will show you how to address the basics of cyber security, to prevent future attacks on your organisation.

With this certification, you can have peace of mind that you have the right defences in place to protect your business.

Cyber Essentials Plus:

This certification is the next level in demonstrating how secure your business is. In addition to the self-assessment required for the basic Cyber Essentials certification, an audit of your IT estate is carried out by a third-party assessor to highlight any weak areas within your organisation.

The audit includes extensive testing of your IT security including (but not limited to):

• Testing of two-factor authentication – ensuring this is set up correctly and used to access cloud services such as Microsoft 365
• Vulnerability scan of devices – looking for vulnerabilities relating to unpatched software
• Penetration testing – simulating a cyberattack to test your firewall defences
• Testing email client & internet browser defences – to ensure malware files are blocked on download from either an email or internet page

For businesses who are serious about their cyber security, this is the certification we would recommend.

Why does my Business need Cyber Essentials?

Cyber Essentials is a widely recognised certification that provides your potential customers and partners with confidence that you have taken the necessary measures to protect your organisation against cyber attacks. In addition to this, if you would like to bid for central government contracts which involve handling sensitive and personal information or the provision of certain technical products and services, you will require Cyber Essentials Certification.

How can we help?

We understand that to many companies, cyber security is a complex and daunting topic that is often put on the back burner.

We can’t guarantee that you will never experience a breach in your security defences, unfortunately no one can. However, our technical engineers have vast knowledge and experience in the cyber security world, enabling us to consult with our customers and recommend the best course of action.

We are here to ensure you have the correct defences in place to complete the Cyber Essentials process and are successful in achieving both certifications.

For more information, please get in touch to arrange a consultation.

pf@officetechsuite.co.uk

0117 452 0033