Whats the difference between Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus?

Let’s compare Cyber Essentials vs Cyber Essentials Plus. The first one is the basic level of the certification that requires organisations to have security controls to protect their systems and data. The Cyber Essentials checklist focuses on five controls: FirewallsAccess controlsMalware protectionSecurity updatesSecure configurationCyber Essentials Plus is the advanced level of certification that requires organisations to have advanced security and data protection measures. Apart from the above 5 controls and questionnaires, it includes an independent technical audit to validate your security controls.

Is Cyber Essentials Plus better than ISO 27001?

Cyber Essentials Plus covers fewer areas compared to ISO 27001. It’s more suitable for smaller organisations because ISO 27001 is more complex and difficult for them to become compliant with it.

Is Cyber Essentials globally recognised?

Yes, the cyber security accreditations Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus are recognised globally.

Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus Certification Services

Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus Certifications

Achieve Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certification with Microminder’s expert guidance and practical support and improve your security and compliance posture.

What Are Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus Certifications?

Cyber Essentials (CE) is a cybersecurity scheme backed by the UK government to help organisations of all sizes protect themselves from cyber threats, such as phishing, malware, DDoS, third-party risks, and more. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) developed the scheme in 2014 and the IASME Consortium manages it on behalf of NCSC.

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Cyber Essentials vs Cyber Essentials Plus

Cyber Essentials involves self-assessment where the business or applicant must be able to answer the questions that give evidence of implementing the five technical controls. The Plus version includes the five technical controls and an additional security audit by an assessor.

Checks	Cyber Essentials	Cyber Essentials Plus
Questions	Yes	Yes
Evaluation	Yes	Yes
Verification	No	Yes
Certification	Yes	Yes

Checks

Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials Plus

Questions

Yes

Evaluation

Yes

Verification

Yes

Certification

Yes

Become Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus Certificated with Microminder

Cyber Essentials self-assessment questions are not easy, especially if you don’t come from a technical IT background. Microminder CS steps in to make that process easier for you.

We provide practical security guidance and support to businesses to help them get certified in Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus. We help you understand questions, and how they are relevant to your business. Our security experts take time to understand your business to be able to help you with corrective measures based on your exact needs.

Our Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus Certification Services

We offer the services below to help you become certified with Cyber Essentials:

Self-assessment guidance:
Our security experts guide you on how to attempt Cyber Essentials self-assessment questions, whether you have an IT background or not. We take into account your security needs and ensure current measures meet certification requirements.
Risk assessment:
We conduct risk assessment on your IT systems using penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, compliance testing, and other checks. This helps us detect weaknesses in your systems, processes, and network. Based on this data, we assist you on how to fix issues and achieve compliance.
Technical audit:
To ensure you obtain Cyber Essentials Plus certification, we conduct a comprehensive hands-on technical audit of your IT infrastructure to validate your security and data protection controls. This helps us detect vulnerabilities and threats that you can fix to get audit-ready.
Remediation support:
After finding vulnerabilities and issues in your systems, we help you mitigate them with step-by-step guidance and practical strategies. We sit with your security team to discuss and prioritise threats and remediate them to achieve compliance.
Training:
Microminder offers training sessions for your security team to help stay updated with the latest cybersecurity trends and solutions. We also conduct red meaning, penetration testing, and tabletop exercises to improve your organisation’s preparedness against attacks. Apart from Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus, this helps you achieve other certifications.

Focus areas

We focus on improving these areas of your IT infrastructure based on the Cyber Essentials scheme:

Optimise your firewall: Change default settings, use multi-factor authentication (MFA), restrict admin access, block unauthenticated connections, and revise firewall rules periodically.
Use anti-malware software: Block harmful software programs and protect your systems by updating the anti-malware tool to the latest version and setting it for automatic file and web page scanning.
Control access: Allow only authorised people to access data, systems, and services, remove unnecessary accounts and permissions, apply MFA, and perform admin tasks using admin accounts only.
Secure configuration: Set secure settings for installing devices and systems, restrict access, remove unnecessary software, and always authenticate users.
Updates: Always update your systems and apply patches immediately or within 14 days of being available, enable automatic updates, and remove unsupported or unwanted software.

Explore Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certification services

Why Do You Need Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus Certifications?

Security: Getting certified means you are serious about securing your IT systems. Using firewalls and anti-malware solutions, correcting configurations, managing access controls, and updating systems reduces risks. You can detect and respond to security vulnerabilities and incidents effectively. This way, you get better protection against threats, such as malware, unauthorised access, phishing, internal threats, third-party risks, etc.
Data Protection: Obtaining the certification assures you are using sufficient data protection measures to protect your business and customer data from internal and external threats. This means you don’t lose your sensitive data to the wrong hands and maintain data integrity and availability at all times.
Compliance: Authorities and regulatory standards, such as HIPAA, GDPR, SAMA, etc. require you to comply with their security and data privacy standards. If you’ve obtained the Cyber Essentials certification, it’s proof that you’re investing in cybersecurity and data protection. You can show your adherence to data protection laws and regulations to avoid penalties, fines, and reputation loss.

Trust building: The Cyber Essentials certification helps you build trust with your customers, business partners, and investors. It gives assurance that you are prioritising cybersecurity, which means lower risks and service downtimes. You won’t also have to invest in costly fixes as you will have controls to detect and fix vulnerabilities before they convert into attacks.
Insurance benefits: Sometimes, you may get incentives or discounts from cyber insurance policy providers. It’s because they would know the risks with a certified organisation are lower compared to others that don’t. It’s especially important for small business cybersecurity.
Competitive advantage: Showcasing your Cyber Essentials certification will help you win more customers and attract new investors. It puts you in a higher position than other organisations that lack the certification. The reason is cyber attacks can happen to anyone at any time, so you need more layers of security. Working with a Cyber Essentials-certified organisation gives your customers and investors that.

Let’s get you Cyber Essentials certified

How We Prepare You for Cyber Essential Assessments

Microminder is a trusted cybersecurity provider with decades of experience serving customers. You can trust us to prepare you for Cyber Essential Assessments. This is how we at Microminder do it:

Consultation

First, our security experts sit with your security team to understand your business, its attack surface, the types of data you handle, and your current attack readiness. We then explain the certification process and its requirements. We also talk about what types of assessments you are going to face to achieve the certification.

Gap Analysis

Next, we thoroughly assess your IT infrastructure to find security and compliance gaps. We use vulnerability scanners, compliance tests, penetration tests, and other assessments. It exposes weaknesses and threats in your network, systems, devices, and processes that you must resolve.

Remediation

Our team assists you in remediating security and compliance issues in your IT infrastructure with a detailed, step-by-step roadmap to ease the process. We help you prioritise threats, apply security controls, and meet compliance requirements.

Application Submission

Once you’ve improved your security and compliance posture and understand the requirements of Cyber Essentials certification, we help you complete your application for certification. Take the assessment confidently keeping in mind our assistance and the changes you’ve introduced to get to safety.

After you pass the assessment, you will get the level one certification – Cyber Essentials certification. It makes you eligible to apply for the second level – Cyber Essentials Plus.

Hands-on Audit

Apart from self-assessment questionnaires, Cyber Essentials Plus certification includes a technical audit that you will need to pass. For this, we thoroughly audit your complete IT infrastructure to find vulnerabilities and threats. We also help you prioritise and resolve those issues to prepare you for the Cyber Essentials Plus certification.

Talk to our experts for details

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