Cyber Essentials & Cyber Essentials Plus
Cyber Essentials from the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre), helps school protect themselves from cyber-attacks. This government-backed scheme aims to ensure schools have procedures and practices in place to help protect themselves in an ever-growing cyber security threat landscape. At its core, Cyber Essentials is a certification that demonstrates your due diligence and protection against cyber-attacks.
There are two levels of certification that schools can undertake, Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus. What are the differences? What can you expect from these accreditations?
Cyber Essentials
Gaining either of the Cyber Essentials accreditations will enable you to confirm to clients and prospects that you have invested in your cyber security in order to protect your school from cyber-crime and can demonstrate that your school is cyber secure.
The baseline Cyber Essentials accreditations consist of a self-assessment against five basic security controls (firewalls, secure configuration, user access control, malware protection and patch management) and the most common cyber-attacks businesses experience. After the self-assessment, a qualified assessor verifies the assessment.
Threats such as phishing, ransomware and malware are on the rise, especially with the changes the schools have gone through since 2019. Cyber Essentials not only shows staff, parents, governors etc. that you are cyber secure, but it also lowers your chances of being targeted by, or fall victim to cyber-crime.
Cyber Essentials Plus
Cyber Essentials Plus works differently in the way your school is evaluated. Passing this accreditation involves a physical, technical audit of your systems, testing that the five security controls mentioned above, are effective. This hands-on approach is for those who require a more in-depth audit, for example, schools who have staff remote teaching in several locations.
Why Should Your Business Get Cyber Essentials Accredited?
Gaining either of the Cyber Essentials Accreditations not only boosts school reputation and reassures existing stakeholders that you are doing all you can to be cyber secure, but it also provides confidence in your data security protocols.
Displaying the Cyber Essentials Accreditation on your website and collateral is a key security benefit that you can use to show off how seriously your school takes cyber security. This will be a seen as a big benefit to parents, potential staff, governors etc.
Our latest blog further explains these benefits: Reap the Rewards of a Cyber Essentials Accreditation
Cyber Essentials Accreditations also enable you to view what you’re currently doing right, and what you’re currently doing wrong from a cyber-security perspective. This information is invaluable for those looking to confirm that they’re cyber secure. In many cases, those who have a Cyber Essentials accreditation can benefit from unique funding opportunities.
“The 2021 Government cyber security breaches survey found a third of schools that suffered a breach lost control of their systems, data or money, and the majority of schools had to allocate time consuming staff resources to deal with the breach. The NCSC advise schools to follow their guidance to ensure students can continue their education uninterrupted.” - IASME (click here to read full article)
Statements like this back what many believe, which is that Cyber-crime is going to continue to grow and impact more and more schools. Cyber-criminals are increasingly becoming more sophisticated, and cyber-attacks can often slip through unguarded defences and can be missed by untrained members of staff. Gaining either of the Cyber Essentials Accreditations will help reduce the potential impact of threats such as ransomware.
What Cyber Essentials Accreditation do I need, and where do I begin?
The NCSC has partnered with the IASME consortium to help schools get Cyber Essentials Accredited. IASME has since partnered with several cyber security specialised companies to help schools get accreditation. Such companies are trained and licensed to support schools in achieving their Cyber Essentials Accreditation.
Sweethaven have been a certification body since 2017 and have had the pleasure of helping many schools achieve Cyber Essentials Accreditation. As part of the Cyber Essentials Accreditations, many of the questions can be difficult to answer without advanced IT knowledge. Sweethaven can help you prepare and pass such assessments to ensure you achieve Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus.
The journey we took in 2017 to achieve accreditation has positioned us well to provide accurate, thorough and in-depth consultation surrounding the government’s Cyber Essentials scheme.
With that in mind, we’re offering schools a free consultation visit to get them started on their Cyber Essentials Accreditation journey. We will work with you to identify what you’re doing for security, discuss which path you want to take and outline a clear strategy to achieve accreditation.
To book your free visit, please fill out the below form: