Cyber Essentials Plus Accreditation

We are pleased to announce that DIS has achieved the Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation for a second year.

The significance of this accreditation is that it not only reduces the risk of attack…  It also promotes to our customers and partners how seriously we take our cyber security responsibilities.

The Cyber Essentials Certification scheme may not be something that you’re familiar with.  So, today’s insight aims to give you a brief overview.

Familiarising yourselves with Cyber Essentials

The objective of Cyber Essentials is to help safeguard organisations against the most common cyber threats, demonstrating commitment to cyber security. (NCSC.gov.uk)

Cyber Essentials was introduced in 2014 and is a scheme backed by the UK Government to help protect organisations, both small and large from a range of cyber attacks, including…

  • Password guessing attacks
  • Phishing
  • Malware

Cyber attacks are significantly increasing.  Never more so than over the last few years, (for reference approximately 38% in 2022 alone.)

As a result of these statistics, you can understand the importance for organisations to be taking their security responsibilities seriously and how the introduction of Cyber Essentials has become the benchmark for IT security.

Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation process

Cyber Essentials is broken down into two certifications, Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus.

The two elements of the accreditation have been designed to support organisations, making sure that they understand and are familiar with the core controls that can safeguard their organisation and its network against incoming cyber attacks.

In brief, Cyber Essentials involves the completion of 80 self-assessment questions completed upon a portal, referring to your business’ IT infrastructure.

Following successful completion and a pass awarded for Cyber Essentials you can then progress onto achieving Cyber Essentials Plus.

Succinctly, Cyber Essentials Plus involves an in-depth audit of your IT infrastructure carried out by the certification body.

This audit tests and ensures compliance with the following five core controls:

  • Firewalls
  • Secure configurations
  • Access Controls
  • Malware Protection
  • Security Updates

To further validate its efficacy the Cyber Essentials certification is only valid for 12 months, meaning that organisations must complete and pass the assessment annually to retain their accreditation.

To discover Cyber Essentials in further detail and to consider why your organisation should be considering undertaking the certification, please click here.

Subsequently, if you have any questions or would like to better understand Cyber Essentials please contact Data Installation & Supplies on 01274 869 099, or email info@disnorth.com and our team of experienced engineers can discuss your individual organisation’s IT security in more depth.