Follow Us:

Cyber Essentials: Protect Your Organisation Against Cyber Attack

Data Connect have helped many organisations achieve Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus. It can be used as an effective framework within an overarching Cyber Security strategy for improvement or to provide assurances to customers, investors or a supply chain.

The benefits of certification

Cyber Essentials can help your organisation in many ways:

 

  • ✓ Reassure customers that you take cyber security seriously
  • ✓ Be listed on the NCSC Directory of organisations awarded Cyber Essentials
  • ✓ Attract new business with the promise you have cyber security measures in place
  • ✓ Take comfort the you have correctly implemented basic Cyber Security measures

What Is Cyber Essentials?

Five Technical Control Themes:

Cyber Essentials has been developed as part of the UK’s National Cyber Security Programme and aims to encourage businesses of any size to take steps towards achieving a baseline of cyber security.

 

It is believed that implementing the required controls could shield companies from up to 80% of the common threats from the internet.

 

Adopting Cyber Essentials is likely to be a major requirement to win business in many sectors in the future – and to demonstrate this, the government now requires some suppliers bidding for certain information handling contracts to be Cyber Essentials certified.

Requirements are specified under the following 5 technical control themes:

 

  • firewalls
  • secure configuration
  • user access control
  • malware protection
  • patch management

Who Can Apply For Cyber Essentials?

The scheme is applicable to all private sector organisations, universities, charities, and public sector organisations. It is backed by industry including the Federation of Small Businesses and the CBI. A number of insurance companies are starting to offer incentives for organisations that conform to the scheme.

SME

Large Company

Education

Government

Charities

Local Authorities

Non UK

Guard Against the Most Common Cyber Threats and Demonstrate your Commitment to Cyber Security

A company can gain 1 of 2 Cyber Essentials badges: “Cyber Essentials” or “Cyber Essentials Plus”. These badges allow a company to advertise the fact that it adheres to a government endorsed standard. Data Connect offer the following services to help organisations prepare for and achieve Cyber Essentials:

QUESTIONAIRE

Each of the Accreditation Bodies has a questionnaire which you can fill in if you are looking to self assess for the Cyber Essentials certification. This can usually be downloaded from their website. Cost for submission if you are looking to self-asses is usually between £300 and £400 and you must submit this via a Certification Body.

 

Data Connect offer assistance for organisations looking to achieve or maintain Cyber Essentials. This assistance is designed to ensure that consumers fully understand the requirements of the Cyber Essential scheme and includes help with ensuring the questionnaire is correctly answered to the satisfaction of the certifying body.

Benefits of Using Data Connect:

  • We have accredited Cyber Essentials consultants
  • Our team have full knowledge of the standard and requirements
  • We understand more that just Cyber Essentials. We are security specialists.
  • We have successfully helped numerous organisations pass first time
  • Utilise us to reduce costs associated with re-submission
  • Our expert guidance can help quickly identify gaps
  • We look at environment differently, making recommendations to both improve security and your chances of obtaining Cyber Essentials

AUDITED ASSESSMENT

In order to achieve Cyber Essentials Plus the certification body must carry out an audit of the core security controls. These controls are tested to ensure they protect organisations against the most common threats.

 

Our consultants often work on behalf of the Certification Bodies auditing organisations against the standard for certification. On this basis we are ideally suited to help organisations ensure they are prepared for the audit and can meet all the requirements in a way that is suitable for the business.

Why use Data Connect:

  • Identify any gaps in existing controls, process or procedures
  • We walk you through the audit process
  • Our expertise across technology, people and processes makes us ideally placed to offer the best advice
  • Service includes a full “mock” audit prior to certification attempt