Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials is a government-backed accreditation that was introduced back in 2014, and offers businesses baseline cyber security to cover the basic protection from cyber-crime. The scheme was introduced to make it easier for businesses to protect themselves and to encourage good cyber security practices.

How can Cyber Essentials benefit your business?

Cyber Essentials consists of five key controls which, when implemented, help to secure your organisation against cyber-attacks. These are:

• Securing access to network services
• Configuring your systems to reduce vulnerabilities
• Ensure access to your data and services is assigned to authorised users only
• Using and maintaining virus and malware protection
• Keeping your applications up-to-date with necessary patches and security fixes

By deploying these controls, organisations can defend against the most common form of basic cyber-attacks originating from the internet, to help prevent illegitimate access to their systems.

CyberGuard Cyber Essentials Survey

In a bid to understand how businesses are using Cyber Essentials, we surveyed 251 IT managers in UK companies, ranging from small businesses (20-49 employees) to large companies (750 employees or greater).

What’s worrying is that a staggering number of UK businesses are unaware of the Government-backed accreditation. Almost one in five IT managers reported that they were unaware of how Cyber Essentials compliance could help their business.

However, 84% of those accredited, claimed it has helped them win contracts, with others highlighting the importance of being able to reassure their customers they take cyber security seriously.

Cyber Security Evidence

We understand that applying for an accreditation can be a tedious task. This is why we’ve made it as simple as possible, guide your business through the steps to accreditation with the minimum of fuss.

Once passed, you’ll be able to display the Cyber Essentials logo on your website and marketing literature to demonstrate to your customers, suppliers, investors and stakeholders that your organisation is taking steps to protect against common cyber threats, and you take cyber security seriously.