Cyber Essentials
The five technical controls buyers check before they trust you.
Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed scheme that sets out a baseline of technical controls to protect against common cyber attacks. Larger customers increasingly ask their suppliers to meet it, so its themes turn up in questionnaire after questionnaire.
What it covers
The scheme is built around five areas: boundary firewalls, secure configuration, security update management, user access control (including multi-factor authentication), and malware protection. Questionnaires tend to probe each of these in turn.
How Tickbox helps
Tickbox recognises Cyber Essentials-style questions and drafts an answer for each, phrased in your own words and grounded in the current controls. You stay in control: every answer is a draft you review before sending, never a claim of certification.
Questions you might be asked
- Are firewalls configured on every device that connects to the internet?
- How do you keep devices securely configured and remove unused accounts?
- Do you apply high-risk security updates within 14 days?
- Is multi-factor authentication enabled on your cloud services?
- How are administrator accounts restricted and reviewed?
- How do you protect devices against malware?