How to get started with Cyber Essentials

Runecast Academy Series 2 – Part 9. How to get started with Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials is a UK security standard designed to show that an organization has a minimum level of protection in cyber security through annual assessments. It comprises a set of basic technical controls to help organizations protect themselves against common online security threats. The Cyber Essentials scheme is a UK government-backed framework supported by the NCSC (National Cyber Security Center). 

The UK government collaborated with the Information Assurance for Small and Medium Enterprises (IASME) and the Information Security Forum (ISF) to develop Cyber Essentials. 

As of October 1st 2014, the UK government has mandated that all suppliers bidding for contracts involving the handling of certain sensitive and personal information be Cyber Essentials Certified. 

Cyber Essentials covers the following areas:

1. Firewalls and routers

2. Software updates

3. Malware protection

4. Access control

5. Secure configuration

There are two levels of Cyber Essentials certification: the base level (called Cyber Essentials) requires that a business complete a self-assessment and submit a payment to the IASME certifying board. The higher Cyber Essentials Plus certification mandates the same protections and controls be in place. But, rather than a self-assessment it involves an assessor carrying out a technical audit of systems, end-user devices, internet gateways and services exposed to unauthenticated users over the internet. 

Cyber Essentials Compliance 

All organizations that work closely with the UK government institutions, and deal with sensitive information, are mandated by the UK government to be Cyber Essential Compliant. Cyber Essentials is suitable for all organizations (inside and outside the UK), of any size, in any sector. Any other corporations or structures that deal with highly sensitive data, the loss and breach of which could cause great damage to their interests, are recommended to be Cyber Essentials compliant. Non-compliance withCyber Essentials can come up with large fines, loss of business and damage to the business’ reputation.

Challenges to Cyber Essentials Compliance

Time-Consuming

Staying compliant with any security standard is challenging because it requires a lot of time to implement all the controls in your environment, and this is the case with Cyber Essentials. Considering the fact that there are many releases of Cyber Essentials guides, we know what work awaits you.  

Lack of IT Resources

All organizations that need to stay on top of security audits, need to involve more people in the compliance process by scanning all the IT systems to find security misconfigurations and remediating all their systems according to the Cyber Essentials rules.

Frequent Audits 

The frequency of security audits adds to the pain of the process being time-consuming and tiresome. Staying compliant with Cyber Essentials means that you have to regularly  check and implement recommended rules, but also prepare reports for the upcoming audits. 

Different  IT Environments

Most companies today operate in complex IT environments which makes the compliance journey even more challenging due to the specific rules (controls) that apply to each system. Checking all these systems manually and applying the required resolution to each specific rule becomes very difficult.

Runecast

Real-time Security Analysis and Reports 

Assessing all the pain that the compliance journey gives to you, we designed the solution for your pain, Runecast. Now it doesn't matter how difficult the compliance journey gets and how short you are on assests, Runecast will do all the work for you. 

Runecast is a platform designed to bring the best to your environment. It will scan each of your specific configurations and provide you with fit-gap analysis, remediation scripts, security hardening checks, and vendor best practices in real-time. This automated process will remove all the manual work, improve your performance and save you on all your assets. Furthermore, within the Runecast platform it is easy to filter and sort issues and compare historical configuration. This can enable you to study the curve of your performance overtime, making your security even more accessible. 

Runecast automates your vulnerability management and security standards compliance audits for AWS, Azure, Kubernetes and VMware, as well as for Windows and Linux OS. It proactively assists with Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM), and Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC). It provides continuous audits against other common security standards such as CIS Benchmarks, NIST, HIPAA, PCI DSS, DISA STIG, BSI IT-Grundschutz, ISO 27001, GDPR, Essential 8 (Australia), and the CISA KEVs catalog.

Summary

Compliance with the Cyber Essential standard is crucial for businesses with UK Government contracts. Also, other organizations that deal with sensitive data and are subject to cyber attacks are highly recommended to do so, to protect their cyber security. The compliance journey is a burdensome process to all these organizations and can take a considerable time of exhausting manual work. Considering the heavy burden that weighs upon an organization's back, we designed Runecast, a simple solution to ease your pain. No matter how complex your infrastructure is or how short you are on assets, don't worry, Runecast is here now. Runecast is a platform that automates your manual work by providing real-time security analysis and remediation scripts to fix your security issues. Furthermore, you can generate real time reports of your security posture anytime and be audit ready. Runecast doesn’t just have security standard compliance analysis, but also configuration issues and vulnerability management functionality, best practices, log analysis, configuration vault to monitor the changes in your infrastructure overtime, vSphere upgrade simulation and hardware compatibility analysis of your vSphere environment. It assists your vulnerability management and security standards compliance audits for AWS, Azure, Kubernetes and VMware, as well as for Windows and Linux OS.