SEA awarded Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation from IASME

Published 4th January 2017

Cohort plc company SEA has become the latest business in the group to be awarded the Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation that is now mandatory when bidding for Government work.

SEA’s defences against cyber attack were tested by MASS and certified by external certifying body IASME. Using a range of tools and techniques, SEA met the criteria that qualified the company to achieve the considerably more demanding Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.

SEA was required to implement five key controls to demonstrate to customers its effectiveness in countering any potential cyber attack. These controls were: secure configuration; boundary firewalls and internet gateways; access control; patch management and malware protection. When properly implemented these five basic controls help protect against internet based attackers using capabilities freely available on the internet.

IT Service Delivery Manager, James Clelford, commented:

“Having passed the Cyber Essentials self-assessment, we were keen to undertake the more thorough, independent checks required to achieve Cyber Essentials Plus. To pass this certification shows our ongoing commitment to ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our own and our customers’ information.”

SEA was able to call upon the Cyber Essentials services of its sister company MASS to support its certification. MASS has become a leading consultant helping businesses in the defence and non-defence sectors to achieve the Cyber Essentials accreditation.