Qualter Hall Retains Cyber Essentials Plus Accreditation
Cyber Essentials is a government-backed, industry-supported scheme that helps organisations to protect themselves against more than 80% of the most common online attack threats, from phishing to malware. The accreditation covers 5 technical controls: firewalls, secure configuration, user access control, malware protection and patch management.
While the standard Cyber Essentials accreditation is a self-assessment, the Plus designation that we maintain requires a rigorous technical audit of our systems by an independent third party on an annual basis. This is to verify that the necessary controls are in place to give us the resilience required by the scheme. George Wild, Director and IT Lead at Qualter Hall, says:
We believe that robust cyber security benefits our entire business ecosystem:
1. For Our Clients: Trust and Continuity
At the most basic level, we know that investment in IT security mitigates the risk of operational downtime, ensuring our projects stay on schedule. In addition, working with government bodies like the Environment Agency on critical civil infrastructure projects such as flood defences requires a high level of trust. For this reason, Cyber Essentials Plus is often a prerequisite for government contracts. By maintaining compliance, we ensure that there are no delays or barriers in our ability to bid for and deliver on vital public works, and our clients gain the peace-of-mind that sensitive project-related data is protected from bad actors.
2. For Our Business: Data Protection and Efficiency
Our engineering expertise is a valuable asset, so it’s important that we protect our proprietary designs, methodologies, project plans and other sensitive business data from cyber-espionage and theft. This is in addition to the efficiency benefit of keeping our digital systems in good working order to minimise downtime and keep our projects on schedule.
3. For Our Supply Chain: Being the Strong Link
Cyber security requires cooperation. If one partner in a business chain is compromised, the entire network is at risk. By securing our own perimeter, we ensure that we cannot enable access into any partner or client systems that may be associated with our own. We encourage our supply chain partners to adopt similar standards, to create a more resilient engineering community across the UK.
In Conclusion …
At Qualter Hall, we understand that maintaining resilient cyber security is critical for guarding ourselves against cyber attacks, protecting our future success and our reputation. Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation protects our business against the most common online threats, enables us to bid for government contracts and also demonstrates to our clients and supply chain partners that we take cyber security seriously and we are committed to protecting our data.
About the Cyber Essentials Scheme
Developed by the experts at the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre), Cyber Essentials is the minimum standard of cyber security recommended by the Government for organisations of all sizes. Since its launch in 2014, over 215,000 Cyber Essentials certificates have been awarded to businesses, charities, schools, universities and local authorities. Over 5.5 million businesses operate in the UK, placing Qualter Hall among a select group of organisations that are proactively defending against cyber threats and prioritising data protection at every level.
