Cyber Essentials is a proven, trusted and UK Government-backed way to strengthen your organisation’s cybersecurity protections, putting fundamental protections in place. It has become a cornerstone of good cyber practice for UK businesses, providing safeguards against the most common online security threats.
However, getting certified isn’t always as straightforward as it might appear. A lot of businesses assume they’re able to pass, only to discover that vulnerabilities, process gaps and misconfigurations stand in the way.
Whether you’re working towards Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus, preparation really is the key to success. The better your groundwork, the smoother the process will be – and the stronger your security will be as a result. Here’s what to focus on if you want to get it right the first time.
A common misconception is that you should wait to complete your basic Cyber Essentials certification before you begin to work towards Cyber Essentials Plus. In fact, the two are interlinked. Once you’ve passed Cyber Essentials, you have only 90 days to complete your Cyber Essentials Plus assessment. This limit often catches organisations out when issues are identified during the Plus preparation that require time to remediate.
The best approach, therefore, is to start preparing for Cyber Essentials Plus while you’re working towards Cyber Essentials basic. This overlap gives you extra preparation time to fix any issues that crop up during scanning.
You can also delay submitting your Cyber Essentials basic assessment until you’re nearly ready to go for Cyber Essentials Plus. Starting early means fewer surprises, fewer last-minute scrambles and a much higher chance of succeeding at the first attempt.
Even businesses with strong internal IT teams often struggle with Cyber Essentials for a simple reason: they assume they’re compliant already when they aren’t. As soon as vulnerability scanning gets underway, it’s not unusual to uncover hundreds (or even sometimes thousands) of issues that need addressing. Here are some of the most common pitfalls:
Cyber Essentials is designed to test your processes as well as your systems. A well-managed IT environment, with clear ownership, defined routines and regular checks, is the strongest foundation you can have.
For a lot of organisations, vulnerability scanning is the biggest roadblock on the way to Cyber Essentials certification. Since the April 2024 update to Cyber Essentials, the focus has shifted from simply applying patches to ensuring that all vulnerabilities, including configuration issues, are addressed.
Previously, if an issue couldn’t be fixed by installing a patch, it often fell outside the scope of Cyber Essentials. Now, configuration changes (such as registry or other configuration adjustments) are fully in scope, so there’s more to remediate and less margin for error.
Once a scan identifies vulnerabilities, you must fix them before certification. You have 90 days to achieve a CE Plus certification from the date you passed CE Basic, with assessors possibly able to grant an additional 30 days to finalise fixes, post CE Plus assessment, but only if that period falls within 90 days of your Cyber Essentials basic pass date.
Another key recommendation is to scan your entire environment, not just the minimum sample. While Cyber Essentials allows for representative sampling, a full scan provides a far more accurate picture of your security posture. It also provides stronger evidence for both auditors and customers, and rather than if something found on one scanned device may exist on others, you can be sure what issues are present across your entire estate, focusing effort on fixing things and not guessing.
Account separation remains one of the most common reasons organisations fail Cyber Essentials assessments. The principle, however, is simple: users should never carry out day-to-day work, such as checking emails or browsing the web, using an administrator account.
That applies across all devices and cloud platforms. On workstations and laptops, every admin should have a separate user account for daily use. In cloud environments like Microsoft 365, AWS or Google Workspace, admin accounts should never have email inboxes or, licences attached. (Some licenses may, of course, be appropriate)
Why does this matter? Because email accounts are the most common breach point. If an attacker compromises an account that also holds admin rights, they effectively gain control of the device and perhaps your entire network or tenant.
A good rule of thumb is to treat admin accounts as unlicensed. They shouldn’t have mailboxes, access to the internet or permissions beyond what’s needed for administrative tasks. This single change significantly reduces the likelihood of a serious breach and is a clear Cyber Essentials requirement.
Another area that often trips businesses up is their use of cloud applications. Many underestimate just how many of these services are in use, including Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud, HubSpot and file-sharing tools. Every one of them falls within the scope of Cyber Essentials, whatever the type of data stored there.
You must be able to demonstrate that appropriate controls, multi-factor authentication (MFA) in particular, are enabled across all cloud accounts. This means identifying every platform in use, even those used casually or by specific teams, and including them in your Cyber Essentials review. Mapping your full cloud environment early helps you pass the assessment and strengthen your organisation’s overall resilience.
From next year, having an application where MFA is not configured is an automatic failure of CE Basic (you therefore cannot proceed to a CE Plus).
Preparing properly for Cyber Essentials takes time, coordination and the right expertise, but the result is well worth it. Not only will you earn a recognised certification, but you’ll also gain a much clearer understanding of your business’s security posture and where improvements are required.
Start early, focus on process as well as technology and treat your initial scan as an opportunity to uncover any issues before your assessor does. Always remember you don’t have to do it alone. Cyber Tec Security can guide you through every stage of the certification process.
Begin your Cyber Essentials journey with real confidence and peace of mind. Get in touch with the Cyber Tec Security team today, and let’s talk about how we can get your organisation certified.