Cyber Essentials

How Cyber Essentials can protect business data

One question all businesses face over the coming months is maintaining a level of security across all devices that access and use corporate data.

There are many options open to businesses, send everyone home with a business owned device that has a VPN setup and enabled, that has corporate endpoint protection installed as well, to name but a few options.

The reality is there are a lot of businesses that are scrambling to put systems in place to allow staff to work from home. While it is easy to allow staff to work from home, thanks to the widespread use of cloud-based systems like Office 365, SalesForce, Sage or Xero, businesses cannot simply allow staff to access these systems from remote personal devices.

The reason is that businesses have no way of knowing what security their staff have on those personal devices. Are they password protected? Do they have any security installed? Are the devices securely configured? Do they keep all applications updated? These are the basic layers the government has recommended businesses have to protect devices and the data stored on them since 2014, so it makes a lot of sense to follow this recommendation when staff are sent home to work.

This basic layered framework is called Cyber Essentials and using the CyberSmart tools it is possible for businesses to monitor these 5 controls through their quick and easy to install agent. If you are already Cyber Essentials certified, it will be helpful to deploy CyberSmart to all personal devices that access corporate data, but for those that do not have a CE certification, this is a great option to help protect devices and data.

Nb: you don't have to deploy the software agent to get your Cyber Essentials certification, Bongo IT can put you through CE without this additional cost, but it is a great tool to have and if you need real time reporting then a must.

Bongo IT use a simple form based web portal to put you through your CE certification. When and where items for rectification are found Bongo IT will solve these issues for you and get you back on track. If you deploy the agent then this feeds machine information back into the portal.

Are you going to be 'CyberSmart' this year?

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