Protecting Your Business with Cyber Essentials Qualification
Without the amazing benefits and capabilities provided by IT, modern business would look very different. Accordingly, the need to protect your organisation’s IT equipment such as networks, data storage systems and workstations should be a major priority. You only have to take a quick look at the technology headlines to see that hacking makes for big business in the digital age.
How, though, can your business protect itself from the threat of hackers and their arsenal of tools which include DDoS attacks, malware and ransomware? Understanding what those last three terms mean is tough enough, but combatting them is on another level. Thankfully, the Cyber Essentials qualification is a Government-backed scheme that aims to help businesses protect themselves by enhancing their cyber security.
What is the Cyber Essentials Qualification?
Cyber Essentials is there to help protect your organisation from the very real threat of cyber-crime by focusing on the following areas:
- Securing your internet connection to ensure that only authorised traffic is allowed to enter and leave your network
- Ensuring that any device on your computer network is correctly configured and secured to reduce the risk of any security vulnerabilities that may be present
- Underlining the importance of protecting your applications and hardware from the threat of malware
- Working to differentiate the various levels of access that should be assigned to different computer users across your network.
- Best practices for patch/update management to give your software the best chance of being protected from vulnerabilities
What Does Cyber Essentials Mean For Your Business?
Cyber Essentials is a form of certification which demonstrates your understanding of cyber security. It not only reassures your customers that you’re reputable and trustworthy, but it also ensures that any potential downtime is significantly reduced. Allowing you to become more proactive with risk management, the visibility that the qualification grants you in the chaotic world of cyber security is priceless. With enhanced knowledge comes the ability to spot risks early on and reduce the impact they could have on your business and its customers.
Not every organisation, of course, has the necessary skills in house to achieve the Cyber Essentials qualification on their own. However, this doesn’t mean that your business has to head out into the digital landscape without the protection afforded by Cyber Essentials. A successful cyber strategy can easily be put into place by teaming up with an external partner who has the Cyber Essentials certification and can help to craft a strategy which suits your organisation and its unique needs.
Cyber Security A Necessary Addition to Your Business
Clearly, the need to protect your IT infrastructure in the modern age should be a paramount concern for all contemporary businesses. After all, the sheer amount of data now held by organisations is staggering and the need to protect this increases with each passing cyber scandal. Despite IT being a niche that is notoriously complex and unfriendly to newcomers, Cyber Essentials represents a fantastic opportunity to start taking back control of your IT defences and keeping your infrastructure online.
