Cyberessentials

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi everyone!

We've been working with Cyberstreetwise the last couple of years to help give them a consumer perspective.

We thought it would be interesting to gauge the uptake of Cyberessentials among MSErs with small businesses.

If you don't use it, if you're happy to could you tell us why? Is it price or something else?

Thanks!

paddyrg

No

The cyberessentials page linked pretty much reads 'blah blah blah', not put together in an encouraging or engaging manner. If it summed up the scope in 5 bullet points, with maybe another three advantages to the reader, it'd probably help people appraise if it was for them or not.

DomRavioli

No

Because I wouldn't need it, as I don't and will never work for or on behalf of the government?

I just honestly don't see the point of Cyberessentials - if I was to tender for work then most people have basic knowledge and procedures for it already.

Former_MSE_Andrea

Thanks for the feedback. Please keep it coming, we'll send the thread over to them so they can see it.

Savvy_Sue

No

Too many words, most of which don't mean anything to me.

Plus we contract to provide some services to our local authority and have not been required to do this. We've had a whole lot of other nonsense to comply with, so why would we go looking for more?

gingerdad

No

Awful site. But again I tend to avoid tendering for any government/ council work, that's not to say we don't work with councils. Just don't do tendering.

november

No

Never heard of it until I read this thread - so I went and took a look.

The website is appalling - very wordy and could do with some help from the plain English campaign.

I think its aim is to keep UK businesses safe by assuming they can't work out how to do that for themselves and giving them more work to do by getting accredited? Other than that I'm just very grateful it appears I can ignore it as I don't tender for government contracts!

As for price, as you asked I looked, but I couldn't find it.

ballysi

Yes

Hi,

We do have Cyber Essentials and are currently undergoing Cyber Essentials Plus. the reason we went for this was due to a requirement for compliance to some of our customers. It seems the requirement for CE is now not just relating to the Government/Local Authority Supply chain rules. We have seen a number of large companies using it as a way to assess 'risk' against lost of information from a small business.

from the top of my head its around £350 a year for CE and CEP starts at around £1500 +VAT per year for a small business. I think from my perspective - a Computing and Electronics engineer I would agree about the wording being too technical in places, especially as its aim is to make companies in the UK more resilient against loss/theft/cyber extortion. I am guessing it will rapidly go the way of Health and Safety rules, which require the company to understand the benefit to them for undertaking the process.