Part Two: Cyber Essentials

By: Sam Geary, Marketing Executive

If you’ve been staying up-to-date with our blog, you probably know that we’ve been focusing our efforts on data protection recently all in aid of the GDPR (yes, the new regulation that started today).

This is part two of our five-part blog focusing on the security of your business and your data. In our previous blog we focused our attention on ‘Patch Management’… If you didn’t catch it then have a read here.

Today I’ll be telling you all about Cyber Essentials and explaining why getting certified can save your business from 80% of cyber-attacks.

Let’s start with the basics and explain what Cyber Essentials actually is…

If you don’t already know, Cyber Essentials is a government backed, industry supported scheme to help organisations protect themselves against common online threats.

Cyber Essentials prevents most cyber-attacks. This can be things like malware infections, social engineering attacks (such as phishing) and hacking.

Why do you need Cyber Essentials?

There are various reasons why Cyber Essentials will benefit your business. The scheme is there to help companies of all sizes demonstrate to customers and stakeholders that the most fundamental elements of cyber security has been implemented.

Cyber Essentials is suitable for organisations of all sizes. It demonstrates security, increases opportunity and saves your business money. There are five key areas that Cyber Essentials helps to protect, these are known as the five key controls of Cyber Essentials:

The 5 Key Controls of Cyber Essentials

Boundary Firewalls and Internet Gateways
Secure Configuration
Malware Protection
Boundary Firewalls and Internet Gateways
Patch Management

To learn more about the 5 key controls and how the government backed scheme can create a cost-effective cyber security solution for your business visit our Cyber Essentials information webpage, it focuses on the scheme and highlights how we can help assist your business.

There are two levels of certification: Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus. We can provide support and assistance for both levels of certification.

Some businesses believe that they are not in danger of Cyber Attacks because they have ‘anti-virus’ software or protection software of some kind that helps guard their infrastructure from what they believe to be cyber-attack. Well the truth of the matter is – every business in vulnerable to cyber breaches. Even the most secure business can find itself being hit by a breach. This proves that it’s not just about the size or scale of a business.

Unpatched systems are an easy target for criminals looking to gain access to corporate networks. Patch management also ensures that potential problems can be resolved as soon as possible before your business grinds to an untimely halt. It also frees up a huge amount of time allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.

Cyber Essentials is recommended for all businesses. So, if you’re a big, small or medium sized business we’d recommend that you either get in touch with us or do some research on the scheme if you’re considering investing in it.

If you’ve read this and would like to find out more about Cyber Essentials or Patch Management, then get in touch today and speak to a member of the team who can advise you on Cyber Essentials Certification.

If you haven’t gathered all the information you had hoped for from this blog, then please visit our individual resources on Cyber Essentials:

Cyber Essentials: How we can help

Cyber Essentials: Protecting Your Business

Cyber Essentials: The Five Key Controls

So, that’s all for this blog post, I hope it has been somewhat informative. Remember, if you want to find out any more information about Cyber Essentials – we have our very own expert who specialises in all things cyber security here at PCS. Get in touch today.

Part 3 will be focusing around backup and disaster recovery. Ask yourself, could your business afford to be down for 24 hours? If the answer is no, then join us for the third of our five-part blog where we’ll be talking about backup and disaster recovery.

Until next time!

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