The Cyber Essential Accreditation scheme has been designed to help any organisation improve security against cyber threats. It’s a way of verifying that your business meets certain standards when it comes to cyber security and helps to minimise the potential for your business being affected by a serious cyber incident in the future. It can also be a very valuable signal for clients that you take cyber security seriously and have all measures in place to protect them too.
The basics of the Cyber Essentials Accreditation
This is a self-certification programme and a government-backed scheme that was created to help enterprises improve cyber security. It is designed to help any organisation put effective protection in place against some of the most common types of cyber attack. The process of getting the accreditation means looking at a wide range of different areas of potential vulnerability, including malware, user access, firewalls and security configuration. Although Cyber Essentials is mostly self-assessed that doesn’t mean that it’s a breeze to pass – it’s still vital for your business to take the time to build cyber security awareness. So, what’s involved?
How to pass your Cyber Essentials Accreditation
- Make sure you understand why you’re doing it. Cyber security is not an area where any business owner should be vague or confused today – and it will be difficult to obtain the accreditation if this is where you are with it. It’s vital to make sure that you have a good understanding of cyber security risks, including how they continue to evolve. This understanding should be something that everyone in the business has so that you can protect against the most basic errors that can open up some of the most significant consequences.
- Use all the technical controls available to you. Most hardware and software today will come with inbuilt technical controls but these may not be active when you start using them. So, you may have to go through the process of configuring technical controls so that they work for your business. Some examples of these controls could include limiting account permissions, ensuring that there are secure passwords being used and revoking account access in certain situations, such as when someone leaves.
- Accept this as an ongoing process. Regular cyber security checks should be inbuilt for your organisation today, as well as ongoing monitoring to look for any anomalies. This is especially so with something as simple as updating – keeping systems and software updated so that you’re always running the latest version is the most effective way to keep hackers out.
- Focus on malware protection. Malware is a malicious code and it can do a lot of damage to your entire network if even one device is affected. That’s why it’s so important to have anti-malware solutions in place and take protective measures where possible. These could include software that warns about connections to malicious websites and which automatically scans downloads for issues.
The Cyber Essentials Accreditation is a great option for any business today keen to be better protected against cyber crime.
At SADS IT, we take pride in guiding our clients throughout the whole cyber essentials accreditation process, if you’re looking to pass your accreditation then please contact us today and join the many businesses we’ve helped in the past.
Alternatively, take a look at our IT Security & Data Protection page to find out how else we can protect you against cyber attacks.
