Cyber Essentials – a rising star in the fight against cyber crime 

Cyber security scheme celebrates 100,000 certifications

Cyber Essentials is an effective, Government backed scheme that will help you to protect your organisation, whatever its size, against a whole range of the most common cyber attacks.

Representing a minimum baseline standard for cyber security in the UK, Cyber Essentials certification is often a requirement for organisations working on UK government contracts. The scheme is centred around five core controls designed to significantly reduce the impact of common cyber-attack approaches, including phishing emails.

There are two levels of certification:

Cyber Essentials 

Our self-assessment option. Vulnerability to basic attacks can mark you out as target for more in-depth unwanted attention. Certification gives you peace of mind that your defences will protect against the vast majority of common cyber attacks.

Cyber Essentials Plus 

Cyber Essentials Plus take the same approach and aims to put the same protections in place, but in this case, a hands-on technical verification is carried out. This year Cyber Essentials awarded it’s 100,000^th certification, so we thought it was a perfect time to look at some of the other important stats for the scheme.

Cyber Essentials was launched in the UK by NCSC on 5^th June 2014

Cyber Essentials certified SMEs are 60% less likely to need to make a claim on Cyber Insurance

More than 50% sole traders and small organisations and just under 50% of micro-organisations report no problems implementing the technical controls.

A non-IT or Cyber Security specialist implements the technical controls in 50% of small & micro organisations.

75% of organisations that certified felt that Cyber Essentials is accessible enough to meet their needs.

76% of organisations that certified felt that Cyber Essentials was beneficial and 87% would recommend it to other organisations.

Only 40% of large and 15% of micro-organisations hold another cyber security certification

Almost 300 cyber security organisations across the UK are trained and licensed to certify against the Cyber Essentials Scheme and half of these are micro sized companies.