Cyber Essentials - all the changes: what's new and how it will impact on you and your business

Cyber Essentials Standard - all the changes! m3 Networks Managing Director Mark Riddell talks you through what's new in Cyber Essentials Standard, and how the changes will impact on you and your business!

Prefer reading? Click here if you want a full transcript of the episode!

What is happening with Cyber Essentials Standard?

More and more businesses are using Cyber Essentials Standard as part of their every day operations.

And that's a good thing!

It definitely helps in fending off cyber criminals and preventing hackers from targeting your networks.

But changes are coming.

The software's being updated to reflect the changing times.

Mark Riddell and the "Techcess" technology podcast team are here to talk you through everything that's being changed!

What is Cyber Essentials Standard?

Cyber Essentials Standard is a government-backed scheme that helps businesses protect themselves against cyber attacks. It's not just for big businesses either - even small businesses can benefit from it. The standard has been updated, and there are some changes that you need to be aware of if you're using Cyber Essentials.

If you're brand new to Cyber Essentials or want to get more of a general idea of what Cyber Essentials is, we've spoken about it before on the "Techcess" technology podcast.

To have a listen to that previous episode, click here or paste the following address into your browser:

http://traffic.libsyn.com/techcess/Cyber_hackers_are_a_nasty_business.mp3

If you've already listened to that episode, or you were already aware of Cyber Essentials, and just want to know what the changes are, this is the episode for you.

Cyber Essentials changes for home working

The first change is to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). This is where employees bring their own devices into the office (or their home if they're working from home), and use them for work purposes.

Previously, BYOD (listen to the episode to hear how Mark refers to it) was allowed as long as certain security measures were in place.

Listen to find out what the new rules mean for any device that connects to your company network from your home.

They apply to laptops, smartphones, desktops and tablets.

Cyber Essentials changes for cloud services

The next change is to the use of cloud services.

In fact, there are three new rules:

For Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS - products like Rackspace, Google Compute Engine, Amazon EC2)

Platform as a Service (PaaS - products like Aure Web App)

Software as a Service (SaaS - Microsoft 365, Dropbox, Gmail)

Listen to hear what the rule changes mean for the use of those tools in your business.

Cyber Essentials changes - other impacts

There are a number of changes too, including;

• Your use of the router provided by your ISP
• Multi factor authentication
• Wireless devices
• And other things that are now 'in scope'

Useful links to things mentioned in this episode:

• NCSC info page: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/update-to-the-cyber-essentials-technical-controls

• The CE requirements document: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Cyber-Essentials-Requirements-for-IT-infrastructure-3-0.pdf