Cyber Essentials Certification is an official UK government initiative designed to protect businesses against common cyberattacks such as phishing, brute-force attacks, and malware attacks.
This scheme is straightforward and involves filling out a self-assessment questionnaire, which is then reviewed by an external assessor, along with performing a vulnerability scan of your network.
Self-assessment option
Cyber Essentials is a government-backed scheme designed to defend businesses of all sizes against common cyber attacks, making implementation easy for organisations that possess appropriate infrastructure. The scheme utilises both an internal and external assessment to review five areas of technical control, such as boundary firewalls, gateways, gateway management, secure configuration, malware protection, and access control. Self-assessment questionnaires must be completed online and then submitted to an accredited assessor for review. If all answers provided by an organisation are correct, certification is granted; otherwise, any faults identified by the assessor must be corrected prior to resubmitting their assessment for approval. Certificates are valid for one year before being renewed annually.
By becoming certified through Cyber Essentials, your customers, staff, and other stakeholders can have peace of mind knowing you have basic cyber security measures in place and demonstrate to customers and stakeholders alike that your business takes data security seriously. Certification also marks an important milestone on your security journey and can pave the way towards attaining advanced certifications further down the line. Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Starting off by fulfilling basic needs will set up your business for further expansion.
As certified Cyber Essentials assessors, we can help guide you through every stage of compliance, including pre-assessment consulting and support, the actual assessment itself, and any additional measures you might want to take for enhanced protection.
Our range of packages available to us includes the Cyber Essentials Verified Self-Assessment and more comprehensive Cyber Essentials Plus packages. The latter option includes both components as well as an in-depth audit by an experienced Cyber Essentials assessor. The cost will depend upon employee count and if any remote workers or third-party users have access to IT systems; time taken will also factor into this calculation.
External assessment
Cyber Essentials certification provides businesses of all sizes with an efficient way to secure their computers against common cyber attacks, even those without dedicated IT departments or extensive knowledge of cybersecurity. It can provide protection from a wide range of attacks while helping prioritise security measures, plus act as an attractive selling point when recruiting new customers or improving reputation.
Step one in attaining cyber essentials certification is self-assessing your IT environment. This involves filling out a simple questionnaire and having it independently reviewed by an assessor, who will verify whether all requirements of the scheme have been met by your business. After this initial step has been completed, 12 months later, your certificate can serve as proof against common cyber attacks and be used as evidence that your organisation has adequate protection from them.
For optimal results, when seeking to obtain your Cyber Essentials certificate, it is recommended that you work with a CREST-accredited certification body. This will ensure your answers are correct and accurate while meeting scheme guidelines, with accurate assessment procedures following. At IT Governance, we are CREST-accredited assessment bodies for the Cyber Essentials scheme and can assist in this process with our documentation toolkit, which contains all policies required to become compliant, and our professional review service, which ensures your self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) meets scheme requirements before submission.
By implementing Cyber Essentials controls, your organisation can protect itself against up to 80% of cyberattacks. These technical controls help mitigate risks like phishing, hacking, password guessing, unattended mistakes, and malware. Although Cyber Essentials assessments don’t replace full security audits conducted by accredited third parties, their costs tend to be far less. Moreover, due to the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Strategy, it has now become mandatory that suppliers bidding for public sector contracts first become Cyber Essentials certified before bidding can even commence.
Requirements
Get Your Cyber Essentials Certificate now. Getting your business certified as cyber essentials is not only important for protecting information security but can help your company win new business as well. Developed by the government to defend businesses against cyber attacks, this scheme gives customers confidence that their data will remain safe with you. The certification process is straightforward and can even be completed online; just select an external assessor with experience in both IT and operational technology (OT), such as Tripwire, for example.
The process involves answering a series of questions regarding your IT infrastructure, with answers determining if you meet the five technical controls required by law. Once completed, an assessor will review your answers to ensure validity before scheduling an assessment for validation. Typically, this takes approximately one week, and once you pass, your business will be given a certificate valid for 12 months to display on its website or use when tendering for public sector contracts.
Once certified, your business can have peace of mind knowing that its data is safe from the most common cyber attacks—an invaluable asset for any small or mid-sized enterprise that handles customer data. In addition, being certified also shows your efforts at protecting your systems against such attacks as well as taking security seriously.
Additionally, certification will help your business comply with industry standards and regulations; some financial institutions require their vendors to be Cyber Essentials-certified. It could also come in handy when seeking funding or investments.
Cyber Essentials certification comes at a relatively modest cost and reaps immense benefits for any business. Not only will it protect it from cyber attacks and save you money in the process, but it will also show your commitment to safeguarding customer data and privacy, boost your reputation among existing clients, and attract more new ones. Plus, it makes winning government contracts much simpler!
Cost
Cyber Essentials is a government-supported certification scheme that helps businesses of all sizes protect themselves against common cyber threats. Comprising five basic security controls that are easy to implement, Cyber Essentials helps your business meet industry standards and regulations while showing customers, clients, and partners that you take data protection seriously.
The costs associated with certification depend on your organisation, though generally speaking, they should not be prohibitively costly. Certification involves answering a self-assessment questionnaire and being evaluated externally by a certified assessor, after which an official certificate will be presented to your organisation, which can then be displayed on its website.
If you want to take your certification one step further, Cyber Essentials Plus could be an ideal choice. More stringent than its basic equivalent, this certification requires an onsite audit from a Certification Body that will test your technical security controls, though it is more expensive overall.
Cyber Essentials is a UK government-supported initiative that offers businesses of all sizes an effective framework for implementing basic cyber security measures and protecting themselves against some of the most common attacks like hacking, phishing, and malware. It aims to prevent up to 80% of attacks through easy implementation controls that protect businesses against these common attacks.
Another advantage of Cyber Essentials certification is that it helps secure new business. Many organisations require suppliers with this credential before tendering projects, and insurance providers are more likely to consider such organisations favourable.
Cost of Cyber Essentials Certification depends on your business size, the complexity of your systems, and whether or not existing measures exist to defend against cyberattacks. While small businesses might only need to spend several hundred pounds to become certified, larger organisations might invest thousands. Once certified, however, it’s important to continue maintaining it by taking part in annual assessments to keep your security current.
