Cyber Essentials Discounted Schemes For Charities

With this in mind, The IASME Consortium, the recognised partner for the Government backed Cyber Essentials certification scheme, is launching a week-long campaign in November aimed at encouraging registered charities to improve their resilience to online threats. Alongside their participating licensed partners, The IASME Consortium is offering discounted certifications on two of their schemes, Cyber Essentials and IASME Governance, which will help charities demonstrate that they have effective and recognised best practice and protections in place.

Guardian Saints is an IASME licensed Certification Body based in South of the UK - Surrey, participating in the Cyber-Security campaign. Working with care services and charities, we have seen the benefits that Cyber Essentials brings including peace of mind and confidence in the security of their systems.*

Dr Emma Philpott MBE, CEO of IASME Consortium, speaks of the importance of the #cybersecurecharities campaign, saying that

“Charities play a key part in our society and, literally, every penny matters! Yet their increasing reliance on technology leaves them vulnerable to everyday cyber threats and puts their mission at risk. This campaign is designed to save third-sector organisations money on their assessments, and the proven measures they will be assessed against will play a key role in helping secure the data and finances that are fundamental to every charity. I'm delighted that so many of our Certification Bodies have joined us in making cyber security accessible to such an important sector.”

The aforementioned Cyber Essentials scheme assesses against the implementation of simple controls in five core technical areas. Its effectiveness means Cyber Essentials is already a pre-requisite for many government and private sector tenders. The 5 technical controls are anti-malware, access control, patching, secure configuration and firewalls. These are the five key areas identified as those which, had controls been in place, would have prevented the majority of internet born attacks over recent years.

IASME will also be offering its own award-winning governance standard as part of the promotion. IASME Governance, which includes a Cyber Essentials assessment and a GDPR readiness check, is an information security management standard which is more practical and affordable for SMEs than the traditional ISO27001. IASME governance builds on Cyber Essentials covering additional protections such as physical security, data back-ups and staff awareness.