You’d be forgiven for thinking the end is nigh if you follow the news. Every day we see our streams updated with stories about household names being victims of cyber crime or new ‘critical’ vulnerabilities in applications and services.
The truth however as always is somewhere in between.
First off the vast majority of Cyber Crime victims are small to medium sized business (50% of small and 70% of medium sized businesses reported having experienced a cyber incident in the last 12 months alone) – these don’t tend to be household names so the media simply doesn’t pick up on them and in the majority of cases malware or fancy 0-days aren’t really used in the attack – the attackers much prefer exploiting stolen or weak credentials and un-patched systems. Items which are arguably easy to mitigate with the right controls and processes in place.
As always it’s somewhere in the middle. We’re seeing an increase in large and enterprise businesses needing both themselves and their suppliers to hold some sort of Cyber Security certification to prove that they’re taking Cyber Security seriously and pose less of a supply chain risk to those businesses and their customers.
As such this is trickling down to the small and medium-sized businesses, meaning that they need to make cyber security integral to their business to keep them competitive and relevant to both new and existing customers.
One scheme that’s proved to be both very effective and widely required is Cyber Essentials. Boasting to reduce an organizations susceptibility and impact of cyber incidents by up to 80%!
Cyber Essentials is an effective, Government backed scheme that will help you to protect organisations whatever their size, against a whole range of the most common cyber attacks.
There are two levels of certification:
A self-assessment option giving organisations protection against a wide variety of the most common cyber attacks.
This is important because vulnerability to basic attacks will mark you out as target for more in-depth unwanted attention from cyber criminals and others.
Cyber Essentials Plus still has the Cyber Essentials trademark simplicity of approach, and the protections organisations need to put in place are the same.
But for Cyber Essentials Plus a hands-on technical verification is carried out.
You can learn more about the scheme here or by giving us a call.
A Cyber Essentials certification is becoming a “need to have” requirement as threat levels increase and the continued use of technology grows. For instance, if you want to create partnerships or bid on certain contracts (specifically Government, or any big supermarket), you may find them asking you, “are you Cyber Essentials certified?”. This is becoming more and more of a requirement for suppliers, partners and vendors, so it’s best to stay ahead of the curve.
If you experience a breach or don’t have the right security processes in place this can result in a loss of trust from your customers. For instance, if a business has been locked out of their systems, this can stop sales processes in their tracks, this is a direct financial loss to your business. Another consideration is, where do those customers go? A competitor! The longer-term financial impact is created by the loss of trust, which is hard and almost impossible to come back from.
Did you know, that passing the Cyber Essentials assessment could entitle you to free Cyber Insurance? And if you’re not eligible for the free cover you might find that having the scheme could help reduce your insurance premiums
So, you’re now probably thinking it might be a good idea to get Cyber Essentials. You can start by talking to us about the process. We can help you every step of the way to getting certified.
Give us a call on 01892 830111, or email hello@select-technology.co.uk to find out more.
