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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,…

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What’s New Wednesday: A Summary of November 2024’s Patch Tuesday November 13, 2024 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support, News, What's New Wednesdays

The Microsoft monthly security update release is published on the second Tuesday of each month. It’s a good idea to restart your PC on the following Wednesday – today. We may well restart some of your servers overnight this week if a patch requires it. NEW THIS WEDNESDAY This month’s Patch Tuesday included security updates for 91 flaws including 4 zero-day vulnerabilities. Overall Microsoft patched: 26 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities 2 Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities…

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Cyber Essentials in 2025 October 31, 2024 – Posted in: Cyber Security, News

What changes are coming to Cyber Essentials in April 2025? The good news is there are no major updates to what you’ll need to do to meet for next year. The IASME are: Introducing passwordless authentication options. Requiring stricter vulnerability management protocols. Making changes to how they describe things. Passwordless Authentication From 2025 IASME will recognise passwordless authentication as a secure access method in the same way it does multi-factor authentication. Passwordless authentication methods include:…

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Insider Threats – What You Don’t Want to Think About October 22, 2024 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support

You have done all the right things to secure your data. You’ve implemented all the recommendations to protect your perimeter and keep the bad actors out, you’ve made sure everything is up to date, you’ve paid for the AntiVirus software that’ll protect you in case something slips past the outer defences. There is one more threat though. One that no-one wants to think about. The insider. The Insider Threat Your staff are your greatest asset.…

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What’s New Wednesday: A Summary of October 2024’s Patch Tuesday October 9, 2024 – Posted in: Cyber Security, IT Support, News, What's New Wednesdays

The Microsoft monthly security update release is published on the second Tuesday of each month. It’s a good idea to restart your PC on the following Wednesday – today. We may well restart some of your servers overnight this week if a patch requires it. NEW THIS WEDNESDAY This month’s Patch Tuesday included security updates for 118 flaws including 5 actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities. Overall Microsoft patched: 28 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities 7 Security Feature…