Want to improve protection of your business against cyber attacks? Want to reassure your clients, prospects and partners that your systems are safe and secure? And would you like cyber liability insurance for your organisation included? Gaining certification safeguards against the most common cyber threats and demonstrates your commitment to cyber security.

How does Cyber Essentials help my business?

Cyber Essentials is a government-backed scheme, designed to help you protect your business against common forms of cyber attack. By prompting you to strengthen your cyber defences, it gives you peace of mind that you’re protected against these attacks. And once you’re certified, you qualify for free cyber liability insurance.

At the same time, this certification gives your clients and potential clients assurance that your organisation has a level of technical controls in place to guard against such attacks. This is a strong marketing tool – particularly if your clients include government departments or local authorities, as they will only deal with suppliers who are certified.

Getting certified

Cyber Essentials is a self-assessed process. To gain certification, you need to pay a fee and receive a detailed online document that you have to complete. This includes a series of questions on a wide range of aspects about your organisation’s systems, such as the operating system versions and the versions of different software applications you’re running.

Another part of the questionnaire asks if you have relevant cyber security policy documents in place relating to issues such as administrator rights. Your business needs to prove that you have these available, as Cyber Essentials can ask to see them at any time with no notice, and you need to produce them immediately.

Once you’ve completed the questionnaire, this needs to be reviewed by a qualified practitioner. They’ll go through every detail and point out any areas that need improvement or changes. You then need to go away and fix these issues before you receive certification.

Or, let SDT take the strain

Completing all the necessary processes to gain Cyber Essentials can be very time-consuming and your IT department may not have the resources to focus on it. At SDT, we’re used to the application process for Cyber Essentials certification, understand what is needed and have the resource to manage the process for you. We can handle the whole process for you from start to finish.

This will not only leave your IT teams to focus on their day-to-day business projects, but it will also speed up your certification, because we have experience of the Cyber Essentials process.

How can SDT help?

Once the process is complete and you’re certified, you can relax in the knowledge that your organisation has met the core minimum security standards. And your clients can be reassured that your systems are safe and secure. What’s more, your business will also qualify for the cyber liability insurance.

To find out more about how we can support you in making your systems more secure and gaining Cyber Essentials certification, contact Andrew Wayman at andrew.wayman@sdt.co.uk or call our office on +44 (0)1344 870062.