Cyber Essentials Certification

Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed certification scheme designed to help organisations protect themselves from a range of the most common cyber threats. Achieving Cyber Essentials certification is a recognisable way to demonstrate to your customers, staff and stakeholders that your organisation has applied an effective set of security controls that help safeguard your IT systems against cyber attacks. Achieving CE certification is also a prerequisite for businesses that want to bid for certain UK government contracts involving sensitive or personal data.

Cyber Essentials certification is achieved through a self-assessment process, where organisations complete an online questionnaire to confirm they have implemented the necessary technical controls in the following five key areas:

• Firewalls
• Secure configuration
• User access control
• Malware protection
• Patch management

Why Choose SecureTeam?

Our consultancy team have been delivering Cyber Essentials assessments since the scheme was first introduced by NCSC in 2014, which means we have some of the longest serving Cyber Essentials assessors in the UK. With hundreds of customers returning to SecureTeam each year for their Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus assessments, we have become a clear choice for organisations of all sizes, who welcome our efficient and pragmatic assessment approach.

We also offer our customers a free resubmission within 14 days if for whatever reason you’re not successful with your Cyber Essentials assessment the first time round.

Cyber Essentials Assessment Process

Upon purchasing your Cyber Essentials assessment with us, our team will get in touch with you to set up your access to the IASME assessment portal. All assessments are conducted through the IASME portal, which enables you to complete your self-assessment questionnaire and allows your allocated assessor to make comments on your answers and request more information if required.

Completing the online questionnaire is self-paced and you can save your progress and return at a later time to continue answering the questions. This is particularly useful if you don’t have some of the information to hand when answering some of the more technical questions.

When you’ve submitted your answers to the self-assessment questions in the IASME portal, one of our assessors will be assigned to review your answers. If we find that you’ve not provided enough information or have answered a question out of context, we’ll get in touch with you through the IASME portal and request more information. This gives you chance to add more information to your questionnaire or to reword your answers if we feel your response is unclear.

During your assessment, our assessor will mark your answers based on the criteria provided by IASME. If your answers meet the current requirements of the Cyber Essentials scheme, your organisation will be awarded certification which lasts for a 12 month period.

Your organisation will also receive a certificate, a digitally-certified logo for your website and £25k in cyber insurance through IASME’s insurance partner.

Need a bit of help?

We all need a bit of help sometimes and getting your organisation through Cyber Essentials certification is no exception. Maybe you don’t have an internal IT team or anyone who is solely responsible for cyber security and need some guidance in understanding and answering the self-assessment questionnaire.

Our Cyber Essentials Consultancy service enables you to team up with one of our IASME accredited assessors while you’re going through your assessment. We’ll be on hand throughout the entire process to answer any questions you might have and provide expert guidance on how to complete your self-assessment questionnaire.

Simply tick the box next to “Need some help?” and we’ll be by your side on your Cyber Essentials journey! You can also add consultancy support at a later date by purchasing our Cyber Essentials Consultancy service separately.