Cyber Essentials is 5 years old and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has reviewed the scheme. They will be looking to improve it by appointing a new Cyber Essentials Partner in order to ensure that Cyber Essentials keeps pace with the changing nature of the cyber security threat and remains relevant.
The aim is to:
- refresh the service
- increase accessibility
- provide a simpler path to certification
The current system is administered by several Accreditation Bodies and this has brought about a lack of consistency and added complication. To simplify it there will only be one. The new partner has not been appointed yet, but the new system is expected to be in place by April 2020.
Cyber Essentials is required by Government to be affordable and accessible and the new system will have to meet these requirements.
There are currently 5 Accreditation Bodies operating the scheme on behalf of the NCSC and each one appoints a number of Certification Bodies with the knowledge, training and experience to be able to review and assess Cyber Essentials applications. iTeam is a Certification Body through the IASME Accreditation Body.
As we do not know what the new system will look like it is difficult to predict whether iTeam will continue to be a Certification Body with the new Accreditation Body but whatever happens Cyber Essentials will continue to exist. It is not necessary for iTeam to be a Certification Body for us to continue to provide our Total Secure Systems Management (TSSM) cyber security add-on to our support contracts and continue to get ourselves and our clients Cyber Essentials certified.
Other non-Certification Body MSPs use third parties to certify their clients. Services are being developed to certify in a different way, for instance rather than having us to complete your questionnaire once a year it may be possible to run an application to constantly assess your compliance.
One good thing is that the refresh of the Cyber Essentials scheme will give it better visibility in the business community and encourage more organisations to adopt it which means we will all be safer.
David Hewett
Managing Director
iTeam Solutions Ltd