UK small and medium-sized businesses can now access a 75% government discount on Cyber Essentials certification, making cybersecurity more affordable. Discover how the initiative could reduce cyber risks, strengthen business resilience and protect companies from costly cyberattacks, while new government investments aim to improve the UK's national cyber defences.

Protect your business against the most common cyber threats with Cyber Essentials.

Impact Media is now Cyber Essentials certified, demonstrating our commitment to your website's security and safety.

Helping businesses to identify and manage key security risks, including those linked to state threats, and to integrate protective security into business strategies.

Almost £10m of funding is being made available to help qualifying SMEs achieve Cyber Essentials certification.

Cyber Essentials is still voluntary for most UK firms. Why certifying on your own timetable beats doing it when a customer or a law requires it.

Cyber Essentials

Umbraco 13 reaches end of life on 14 December 2026. Find out what it means for security and Cyber Essentials, and how long an Umbraco 13 to 17 migration ta...

Submitter **Chops** relates a tale of chasing "The Standard" at any cost: > A company had been forced, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century, and then into the 21st. Their range of dumb hardware was no longer being bought by customers who expected at least some way to get the data off it, and a USB stick wouldn't cut it. > > The techno-fearful hired an external IT company and instructed them to ensure that the company adhered to the UK's "CyberEssentials" programme of IT security. > > Unfortunately, this meant that the nascent software development capability was immediately hamstrung, as people were denied the right to install and run unapproved software (including software that needed admin level rights in order to work, such as process monitor tools used as standard in software dev and test), could not easily connect across networks (also vital for the software dev), could not add various hardware to the network (such as the company's own products, which made testing them awfully difficult) and so on. > > A criminal underworld of mystery PCs slowly grew into place, plugging into the network to get things done, disavowed by anyone who saw them. Tunnels grew up, IP addresses were handed round on notepaper (no DNS approvals), a shadow world of software development in the back alleys of the network. Until finally it was too much, and approval was given for a second, less secure network. The plan was that the real core business, the really important parts, they would stay on the high-security side. There would be a second network, with a single bridge, which would serve the various software development and test systems, and also host the myriad new internal services growing up (wikis, servers, tools and so on). This way, the real core business would definitely remain secure, and compliant, and the software side of it and all that would not compromise the heart of the business. > > The heart of the business ended up being a network share containing a decade of out-of-date, unsearchable documentation for products that were mostly no longer sold. It is super-secure, and the business heads confirm whole-heartedly that the company adheres to the CyberEssentials programme 100% with zero compromise. > > There's just a carefully separated set of servers and PCs, not the true core of the business but about eight times the size and full of essential activity, on a secondary network. [Advertisement] BuildMaster allows you to create a self-service release management platform that allows different teams to manage their applications. Explore how!

57% of UK businesses lack confidence in at least one of nine basic security tasks. Here is the list, and how to use it as a check on your own firm.

Cyber Essentials is still voluntary for most UK firms. Why certifying on your own timetable beats doing it when a customer or a law requires it.

Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials