Booklet open showing a speech bubble with a laptop and a shield on the screen.

CyberEssentials 101: Malware Protection June 6, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security

Malware, such as viruses, is generally used to steal or destroy information. It’s often delivered via phishing attacks – obtaining information by confidence trickery, or social network sites which can be mined for information useful to a hacker to provide a focussed attack on an organisation. Anti-malware solutions (including anti-virus) are available from commercial suppliers, some free, but usually as complete software and support packages. Malware is continually evolving, so it is important that the…

Continue reading...

CyberEssentials 101: Password-Based Authentication May 22, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support

All accounts with access to company data must require the user to authenticate. Where this is done using a password the following protections should be used: Passwords are protected against brute-force password guessing. Technical controls are used to manage the quality of passwords. People are supported to choose unique passwords for their work accounts. There is an established process to change passwords promptly if the applicant knows or suspects the password or account has been…

A picture of a laptop with a Christmassy background and What's new Wednesday on the screen.

Continue reading...

What’s New Wednesday: A Summary of May 2025’s Patch Tuesday May 14, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support, What's New Wednesdays

Welcome to Patch Tuesday May 2025. 72 flaws were patched including 6 critical and 2 zero-day vulnerabilities, both of which have been actively exploited. It’s a good idea to restart your PC today, and we may well restart some of your servers overnight this week if a patch requires it. NEW THIS WEDNESDAY Overall Microsoft patched: 17 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities 2 Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities 28 Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities 15 Information Disclosure Vulnerabilities…

Continue reading...

CyberEssentials 101: Administrative Accounts May 7, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support

All users need to have unique accounts and should not be carrying out day-to-day tasks like browsing the internet, invoicing or dealing with e-mail whilst logged on as a user with administrator privileges. Admin accounts allow significant changes to the way your computer systems work, doing day to day work logged in as an admin opens the door for any mistaken clicks on malicious software or attachments to cause significantly more damage. It’s also important…

Continue reading...

CyberEssentials 101: Security Update Management April 16, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support

This is the next article in our Cyber Essentials 101 series, if you haven’t yet read the first part covering why you should consider Cyber Essentials and how to answer the initial questions about your organisation you can find it here. Patching your devices is one of the most important things you can do to secure your data. For more on why take a look at our infographic about patching computers and our article on…

Continue reading...

Cyber Essentials 101: Device Locking March 21, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support

This is the next article in our Cyber Essentials 101 series, if you haven’t yet read the first part covering why you should consider Cyber Essentials and how to answer the initial questions about your organisation you can find it here. Questions in this section apply to: servers, desktop computers, laptops, thin clients, tablets, mobile phones, and cloud based software services. A5.9 – When a device requires a user to be present, do you set…

Continue reading...

Cyber Essentials 101: Secure Configuration February 27, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security

This is the next article in our Cyber Essentials 101 series, if you haven’t yet read the first part covering why you should consider Cyber Essentials and how to answer the initial questions about your organisation you can find it here. Computers and cloud services often aren’t secure on default installation or setup. An out-of-the-box set-up can often include an administrative account with a standard, publicly known, default password, one or more unnecessary user accounts…

Continue reading...

Cyber Essentials 101: Firewalls February 21, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security

This is the fourth article in our Cyber Essentials 101 series, if you haven’t yet read the first part covering why you should consider Cyber Essentials and how to answer the initial questions about your organisation you can find it here. A firewall is the software or a hardware device which provides protection between your network devices and the Internet. Your organisation will have physical, virtual or software firewalls at your internet boundaries. Software firewalls…

Continue reading...

Cyber Essentials 101: Insurance February 6, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security

This is the third article in our Cyber Essentials 101 series, if you haven’t yet read the first part covering why you should consider Cyber Essentials and how to answer the initial questions about your organisation you can find it here. If you want to use the free insurance then you’ll need to answer all the questions in this section. The answers to these questions won’t affect the result of your Cyber Essentials assessment. It’s…

Continue reading...

Cyber Essentials 101: Scope of Assessment January 28, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security

This is the second article in our Cyber Essentials 101 series, if you haven’t yet read the first part covering why you should consider Cyber Essentials and how to answer the initial questions about your organisation you can find it here. Scope of Assessment This is where you outline what parts of your business you want your Cyber Essentials certification to cover. The scope should be either the whole organisation or an organisational sub-set –…

« First
1
2
3
4
5
...
8
Next
Last »