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CyberEssentials 101: The Final Takeaways & The Full White Paper July 17, 2025 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support

This is the final article in our Cyber Essentials 101 series. We’ve covered the questions you need to answer and why they are important for your business. Attaining a Cyber Essentials certificate is a great way to make sure you’ve covered the basics of protecting your data and your business. Often the most difficult elements are less around the technical areas – if hardware needs replacing, whilst it costs to do so, the process is…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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 –…

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Cyber Essentials 101: Why Cyber Essentials December 3, 2024 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support

Cyber Essentials is a government-backed program that helps you protect your company from common cyberattacks. The IASME is the company that provides the certifications and assessments. For basic Cyber Essentials you will need to fill in a questionnaire, for Cyber Essentials Plus you will need to meet higher standards and an assessor will investigate your network directly. Cyber Essentials is a great way to show your comers that you’re working to keep their data secure,…