Staying safe online is something we talk about regularly with our tenants, but it’s also something that we at Fairoak take very seriously ourselves.
The ever-growing number of cyber attacks and ‘phishing’ attempts is a very real threat, and the personal and business critical information held within our IT systems is something which we simply cannot allow to be compromised in any way.
This is why we recently embarked on the lengthy process to become Cyber Essentials Plus certified, a Government-backed scheme that is supported by many UK industries which helps businesses protect themselves against these growing threats.
“There are two levels of the Cyber Essentials accreditation.” Explains Lisa Chant, Chief Executive Officer at Fairoak Housing Association.
“Cyber Essentials is a self-assessment approach for organisations. It raises awareness and provides actionable measures to give protection against a wide variety of the most common cyber attacks.”
The National Cyber Security Centre puts it succinctly as, ‘the digital equivalent of a thief trying your front door to see if it’s unlocked’.
These common attacks may be relatively crude and often don’t amount to anything, but they do have the potential to identify an organisation as a target for more focused hacking attempts from cyber criminals.
“Having Cyber Essentials certification is reassuring and offers basic protection, it also gives us an understanding and awareness on how to address these attacks.”
“But we know how just how sensitive the information we hold is, so decided to take this protection to the next level – Cyber Essentials Plus.”
The highest level of protection under the scheme, Cyber Essentials Plus is a far more rigorous test of an organisation’s cyber security systems. As you would expect, the process is far more involved and includes cyber security assessors and experts personally carrying out a range of vulnerability tests.
The Cyber Essentials Plus testing and assessments took place during April and May this year, with confirmation that Fairoak had made the grade being received in early June.
“Being able to demonstrate that we are certified as cyber secure is a way to reassure anyone engaging with Fairoak that we will never take for granted their online security and data privacy.” Concludes Alison.
“Everyone’s cyber security is important, but as we are supporting vulnerable people with learning disabilities, their families and support workers, we need to ensure our systems and practices are as robust as possible.”
“Undertaking Cyber essentials Plus has meant extra work for us all, but it’s something that everyone at Fairoak was committed to achieving and are equally committed to maintaining.”