When the UK government introduced the Cyber Essentials Scheme in 2014 they announced two levels of Certifications businesses can go through. First, one being the Cyber Essentials (CE) and the Second one is Cyber Essentials Plus (CE Plus) with the latter being more advanced. Cyber Essentials is a self-assessment certification where you would fill in a self-assessment questionnaire and an assessor from the certification body assesses the questionnaire and marks it a pass or fail.

On the other hand, Cyber Essentials Plus includes self-assessment as well as a systems assessment. Check out our blog article on ‘What is the process for Cyber Essentials plus certification?’ The following technical security controls will be tested

1. Firewalls
2. Secure configuration
3. User Access Controls
4. Patch Management
5. Malware Protection

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As part of the systems assessment, the assessor will run an internal & external Vulnerability assessment, Email attachment test, browser download test, and user access control test. Check out our blog article on ‘What exactly is included in Cyber Essentials Plus audit?’ for more information.

Cyber Essentials Plus certification will cost you around £1,900 + VAT for certification only. It includes the self-assessment questionnaire as well as the systems assessment. There are no extra charges. However, if you are seeking assistance from a consultant/company to help you prepare for the certification or conduct a pre-assessment then it will cost you more.

A common misconception about the certification is that a Penetration test needs to be done. A penetration testing is not necessary for the CE plus certification. It is the vulnerability assessment that is performed on your systems. If you fail the assessment you will have 30 days to fix the issues and re-submit the application without any additional charges. If you are not sure you can sign up for our ‘Cyber Essentials Plus extra’ which includes the pre-assessment and gap analysis so that you know where the gaps are and fix them before submitting the application.

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