Today's Cyber Essentials certification is a stricter version of the Cyber Standard certification, created by UK government-certifying bodies in order to protect businesses from common cyber attacks, as well as improve their online presence and standing with clients and suppliers.
An Important Tool
Beyond this, Cyber Essentials also serves as a marketing tool for your businesses.
The Cyber Essentials logo is a seal of approval you can display on your website and marketing materials, letting your clients know that their data will be as safe as possible in your hands.
A Growing Industry
Today, cyber security is one of the fastest growing fields out there - and for good reason. With the cost of responding to successful ransomware attacks increasing at a faster rate than ever before, it's more important now than ever before to defend your business against intruders.
A Prerequisite
Just about every cyber security certification out there includes the Cyber Essentials standard as a prerequisite. That means that Cyber Essentials is a great place to start!
The Risk To Your Business
The Cyber Essentials scheme has become widely adopted as a standard for one reason: despite being easy to complete, it still provides a basic framework for identifying easy-to-correct errors that hackers will be exploiting first.
A Roadmap To Success
Cyber Essentials provides tools and procedures for organisations to put cyber security in place at a minimal cost. The self assessment option and application process makes it possible. With the Cyber Essentials framework, your business has a roadmap to implementing tighter security without breaking the bank. The trademark simplicity makes it easy.
Once your company has completed the self assessment questionnaire and received the Cyber Essentials certification, it can then strengthen its security even further by pursuing Cyber Essentials Plus certification. Cyber Essentials Plus employs tighter security measures and includes a vulnerability scan by third party certification body.
Security Is For Every Company
By standardizing and streamlining security requirements, Cyber Essentials demonstrates that good IT security isn't just for giant corporations with unlimited budgets.
Make no mistake - IT security is for every company of every size and every budget.
That means there's no excuse not to implement Cyber Essentials, especially considering what's at stake!
Mitigating Reputational Risks
The risks of cyber attacks have been well documented over the last decade. Organisations have lost tens of millions of pounds to a single cyber criminal scheme in a single go.
But there are more than just monetary losses at stake. Your company's reputation can be destroyed by cyber attacks as soon as your clients start worrying that your company might not be completely secured against attacks.
If your clients don't feel confident that their data will be safe with you, they will be reluctant to give it to you. Cyber Essentials help you offer that security!
Your Clients Will Feel Secure Dealing With You
Cyber Essentials certification helps to eliminate that risk. It's a cyber security audit which highlights any areas where cyber security can be tightened up, and provides guidelines for doing so.
With Cyber Essentials certification, your clients know what steps you've taken to ensure that their data is secure. That means that if you've gone through these steps, and you still suffer an attack, your clients will at least know that you've made a strong effort to protect their information.
What Cyber Security Means For Your Suppliers And Customers
With Cyber Essentials, your current suppliers and customers will also have the security of knowing that your organisation followed the required self-directed steps to securing your data.
Furthermore, by getting the Cyber Essentials certification, you'll also be able to let potential clients know that you have secure practices in place, and will therefore help increase new revenue streams by making it easier for them to trust and do business with you.
Bad Things Happen To Good Organisations
People understand that bad things happen to good organisations. When they're confident that you've done everything you can to protect your data, they'll be more sympathetic in the case of a breach.
Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus prove that you've taken the right steps to protect their data.
Negligence Isn't An Excuse
However, if that data was lost due to negligence, they're going to be much less willing to overlook that loss of trust!
Cyber Essentials For The Future
Protecting your organisation today is important. However, future cyber security legislation will likely mandate Cyber Essentials certification, or something equivalent to it, as a minimum requirement for companies handling sensitive customer information.
This means Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus are not only good steps to take toward securing your business and your data for now, but will also help your organisation prepare itself for more stringent future requirements.
Cyber Essentials Will Help You Gain New Revenue Streams By Enabling Business With Official UK Government Entities
Finally, Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus are recognised by government departments as an important step toward securing your company's critical data. UK government contracts require Cyber Essentials certification, after all!
New Revenue Streams
This recognition can open up new revenue streams for your organisation, as the government will often require Cyber Essentials before giving companies access to its tenders.
If you're not yet able to place government contracts because your IT security isn't up to standards, now is the time to explore new opportunities!
Protect Your Company Today
It's your company, after all. Protecting it should always be first and foremost in your priority list. Cyber Essentials makes it easy and affordable for any company to secure their digital borders against common cyber attacks.
We Can Help
Contact us today to find out how being Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certified can keep cyber criminals at bay, demonstrate your commitment to cyber security, and potentially open the door to new customers.
We can guide your company through the certification process, assist with answering self-assessment questions, and bring our experience to your team in order to implement the security controls your organisation needs.
We help keep London companies secure!
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