What is Cyber Essentials?
Cyber Essentials is a Government backed scheme developed to help businesses protect themselves from a cyber attack. It is suitable for businesses of all sizes and will help prevent the most common cyber attacks.
While a cyber attack may be quite sophisticated the majority of them are very basic (for instance, if 80% of burglaries were from leaving doors open, then by creating a door locking culture – you could reduce a substantial amount of burglaries). By following Cyber Essentials guidelines you’ll help protect your business from these basic, opportunistic, attacks.
There are two levels of certification for businesses to chose from.
Cyber Essentials
This level of certification is achieved through self-assessment and will protect business against a wide variety of common cyber attacks. Certification gives you reassurance that your business is protected by providing you with clear basic controls that you should have in place. It also allows a business to promote themselves as trustworthy and secure when it comes to cyber security.
Cyber Essentials Plus
This level of certification starts with the same self-assessment as Cyber Essentials but is followed up with a hands on technical audit. The protections you need to put in place remain the same but there is a more rigorous test of your businesses cyber security systems.
Why do I need Cyber Essentials?
Perhaps you don’t need it, though we think it’s a great scheme. Cyber Essentials give you a clear understanding of your businesses cyber security level, helping to protect you against cyber attacks. In addition, you can reassure your clients that their information is in safe hands and that you take cyber security seriously. It may even help you attract new business, some Government contracts now require Cyber Essentials certification before you can apply for tenders.
What do I need to do?
There are five key controls that you need to implement to ensure you are keeping your information safe and to ensure you have a good defence against cyber criminals. All of these are covered within Cyber Essentials, here are the five controls you should have in place:
Control 1
Use a firewall to secure your internet connection.
Control 2
Choose the most secure settings for devices and software.
Control 3
Control who has access to your data and services.
Control 4
Protect yourself from viruses and other malware.
Control 5
Keep your devices and software up to date.
- Use a Firewall to secure your internet connection
- Use secure configuration for your devices and software
- Control who has access to your data and services
- Protect yourself from viruses and other malware.
- Keep your devices and software up to date