Cyber Essentials:
Why is it Important?

Cyber Essentials is a government backed and industry supported initiative which allows your business to demonstrate that good levels of Cyber Security practice are in place within your organisation.

Renewable yearly, it adds credibility to your business so that customers and suppliers can see that your organisation takes Cyber Security seriously. Giving your organisation a competitive advantage over others.

With assistance from PCS Business Systems, the certification doesn’t need to be difficult to achieve.  PCS have assisted dozens of organisations in achieving it.  For most, we handle the process from start to finish and provide a detailed Cyber Security audit, reporting, remedial works and completely handle the subsequent certification process.

Why is it for winning business?

Pretty much all Public Sector/Government contracts require a business to have a minimum of Cyber Essentials certification these days.  So, if you’re looking to compete for government business, whether your organisation is large or small, you will probably see a requirement to hold the certification.

All Frameworks/tenders run by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) will stipulate that Cyber Essentials certification is a must to be considered for inclusion on any contract/framework.

It is also a recommendation of organisations such as the Law Society (see requirements for Lexcel Certificate of Excellence) and the Institute of Chartered Accounts in England and Wales (ICAEW) – amongst others.  So if you’re a firm of solicitors or accountants, the certification should be top of your wish list.

Additionally, we recently had a customer in the corporate market turn to us when they were looking to win a contract with a major high street chain, the ability to demonstrate good Cyber Security practice was a requirement, and Cyber Essentials certification was the way to establishing this.

 Cyber Essentials requires a business to audit the following five key areas. 

1. Firewall Configuration
2. Access Control
3. Secure Configuration
4. Patch Management
5. Effectiveness of Anti Virus/Malware

These five key principles of Cyber Essentials are all areas of expertise for PCS Business Systems. In addition to helping strengthen controls and make systems more Cyber Safe we can advise on affordable additional products such as Two Factor Authentication (2FA) which can strengthen access controls for your business. All of our services can be found on our Managed Services section of the website.

I want to know more about why cyber essentials is so important

To learn more about how PCS can help secure your business
contact us on 01536 532 900 or email ask@pcs.business