It’s crucial now, more than ever, that you strengthen the protection of your business because of how sophisticated cybercriminals are now in carrying out their attacks.
Without establishing strong cybersecurity measures, you leave your business vulnerable to all kinds of cyber threats, or worse – lose sensitive data and thousands of dollars as a result.
If you want to reinforce your business’ cybersecurity, then you need to get accredited for Cyber Essentials.
Getting accredited can help you protect your business from common cyber threats – such as Malware – and keep the data of your company and your customers secure.
After all, having Cyber Essentials accreditation can help show your customers that they can trust you, leading to a beautiful seller-consumer relationship.
If you need more reasons why your business needs Cyber Essentials accreditation, then read on to find out.
Let’s dive in.
1. It allows you to assess your internal security.
Let’s face it.
No one is a hundred percent safe from cyber attacks.
However, one way of lowering your risks of falling victim to these threats is by getting Cyber Essentials accreditation.
Because getting accredited requires you to assess your internal security, it gives you the perfect opportunity to audit your cybersecurity and discover things like if your endpoint security is updated or if you are using strong passwords for your system.
After doing the cybersecurity audit, you will then need to assess your internal security against your assessor’s questionnaire.
With the process and level of scrutiny involved in getting your Cyber Essentials accreditation, you can detect weaknesses in your security system.
This, in turn, will help you establish policies and practices on how to improve security for your business.
2. It enables you to comply with data privacy and protection laws.
As a business that handles the highly-sensitive information of your customers, it is your ethical and legal responsibility to protect their data.
Plus, with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it’s more than vital for you to adhere to protecting the data of your customers – or you could face fines for failure to comply.
Getting Cyber Essentials accreditation is a great first step for you to take on the road to GDPR compliance.
Since Cyber Essentials offers a guiding framework for your business to manage and safeguard highly-sensitive data, you’ll be able to fulfill the GDPR requirement for appropriate and robust levels of protecting data.
Although getting accredited is only a part of the GDPR compliance picture, having the Cyber Essentials accreditation will help you establish that you put the right security controls in place to protect your data.
By getting Cyber Essentials accreditation, you can protect your data the right way while complying with the law, plus, it can help keep your business away from large fines in the event of a breach.
3. It helps you protect your business from common cyber threats.
Most of the common cyber-attacks aim to exploit basic vulnerabilities in your IT software and systems – and they’re generally pretty straightforward for you to defend against.
Although there are other security measures – such as knowing the kinds of cyber threats penetration testing shields your business from – getting the Cyber Essentials accreditation can further mitigate your possible risks.
The Cyber Essentials scheme requires your business to have the right technical controls in place to handle and store the data of your customers.
To give you a better idea, here are the five technical controls that your business needs to maintain to a good standard to get the Cyber Essentials accreditation.
- Firewall. For your business to achieve the Cyber Essentials accreditation, you’ll need to have a firewall that applies across your whole network and protect all your IT-related devices.
A good security practice is to set up a default “Block Unauthenticated Connections” to your network and changing all your administrative passwords.
- Security configuration. Setting up layers of cybersecurity measures can give your business added protection.
Using 2 Factor Authentication or PINs, and making sure that your software and devices are on the best security settings can only increase your protection.
- Access control. This helps limit the potential damage hackers can inflict on your systems in case of a breach.
Ensuring that users are given access only to what they need to fulfill their roles is also an excellent security practice as this helps lower the risks of compromising your high-authority accounts.
- Malware protection. Having up-to-date anti-virus software is crucial to keeping your business protected from different types of Malware like worms, ransomware, and Trojans.
You will also need to educate your staff so they can spot the signs of phishing attacks like suspicious attachments and emails from unknown sources.
- Patch management. Security patches are commonly released to fix your security vulnerabilities – which makes keeping your software updated essential.
Your out-of-date patches can be a security flaw in your system that hackers can exploit, so it’s crucial for you to keep an update schedule to help ensure protection.
4. It shows your customers that you’re serious about cybersecurity.
When you continuously find ways to improve the security of your business, it can show your customers that you’re committed to keeping their data secure, and the Cyber Essentials accreditation can help you with that.
Getting accredited means your business is compliant to the Cyber Essentials – which means you have the security controls in place to protect the data of your customers.
After all, if your business is compliant with the Cyber Essentials, it also means that you have accomplished the fundamental security baseline that applies to almost every industry.
Plus, showing the Cyber Essentials badge on your website is a great way to tell your investors, partners, and customers that you take your systems’ security seriously, especially if you’re handling highly-sensitive information.
Aside from helping you build trust with your customers, getting accredited with the Cyber Essentials will also allow you to bid for Government contracts.
This is because the government has required suppliers to be compliant with the Cyber Essentials scheme to help improve cybersecurity in the supply chain.
Not only will this uphold the integrity of government data, but it can also give your business a competitive advantage in bidding for public sector projects.
Final Thoughts
By getting the Cyber Essentials accreditation, you’ll be improving your cybersecurity measures while demonstrating to your customers that you place the protection of their data in top priority at the same time.
Plus, you’ll be complying with data protection laws that will help you avoid potential violations, protect the interests of your customers, and establish your business as a secure company.
If you learned anything essential from this post about why your business needs the Cyber Essentials accreditation, then please share this with your network. Cheers!
