Get expert guidance completing Cyber Essentials
We provide UK organisations with leadership and guidance completing Cyber Essentials. We make assessment, and implementing your cyber plan, straightforward and stress-free.
The MyEmpire Group difference
"We’re big enough to support all manner of businesses, from ma and pa’s to enterprise, but small enough to still obsess over detail."
We don’t obsess over detail to the point of paralysis, but we do take great pride in delivering exceptional work. And it’s not just because we get a thrill receiving elated client feedback, although that’s something we all share in common. Primarily it’s because we genuinely care about building cyber security systems that protect businesses. That means really learning your business and your people so we can develop a cyber security strategy suited to you, not a close-enough template pulled from a file. That’s what makes us different; we only feel satisfied when we know a job’s been done right.
Our People
Our cyber security specialists are a mixture of seasoned veterans, many with 30+ years’ experience in IT, management and security. We also have young faces on the team, our rising stars–those whose talents we recognised early and chose to invest in.
Beyond being experts in their fields, our people share a few things in common, a result of how we hire. Prior to any skills being tested in an interview, we look for personable people. Authentic, honest people who are passionate about their field and good communicators. In other words, we look for people who light up when they talk about their line of work. People whose passion is contagious. Only candidates who meet this criteria are taken through the typical interview steps where we probe skills and work history.
Leadership Team
Alex Woerndle
HEAD OF OPERATIONS
(CO-FOUNDER & DIRECTOR)
Alex is an experienced director, IT consultant and infosec professional. He provides security management and leadership to a range of organisations from start-ups through to governments and ASX50 listed enterprises. He has also served over 10 years in voluntary roles as a Non-Executive Director of the Australian Information Security Association,.au Domain Administration Ltd and the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Finance, Audit and Risk Committee.
Carl Woerndle
HEAD OF SALES AND MARKETING
(CO-FOUNDER & DIRECTOR)
Carl has more than three decades’ experience in IT, security and business leadership. Prior to MyEmpire Group, he and Alex built DistributeIT which held approx. 10% market share of .com.au domains. As well as a business owner and manager, Carl has worked as a Cyber Security Advisor consultant for Deloitte. He is a regular keynote speaker on cyber security.
Chris Self
HEAD OF SERVICE DELIVERY
Chris is a highly experienced information security principal. He has worked as a senior cyber security consultant for KPMG, CQR Consulting (now part of CyberCX) and Deloitte. Prior to starting with MyEmpire Group, he was the Information Security Manager at Adelaide Airport where he led a full rebuild of the airport’s cyber security processes and infrastructure. Chris holds a master’s in information systems security and a number of information security certifications, including CISSP and CRISC.
Cyber Essentials helps protect UK organisations against the most common cyber threats.
The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) designed Cyber Essentials to protect organisations against some of the most common cyber threats. Organisations can certify to Cyber Essentials—a self-assessment questionnaire assessed by approved Certification Bodies.
Our Cyber Security Specialists can help with assessment preparation, managing the certification process through to successful completion, and even implementing the requirements for Cyber Essentials.
Improve your organisation’s cyber security
The goal of Cyber Essentials is to give UK organisations a clear path to improve cyber security. Implementing the technical controls within the framework ensures businesses have the fundamentals in place, making it easy for them to build a solid defence against the most common cyber threats.
Increase your business opportunities
As well as actually improving your cyber risk posture, Cyber Essentials demonstrates this fact to other businesses, consumers and regulators, which can lead to new business opportunities. For instance, in 2014 the UK government made Cyber Essentials mandatory to all organisations wishing to engage in central government contracts.
Ideal for small businesses
Cyber Essentials is suitable for any sized organisation, but is particularly valuable to small to medium sized businesses looking to achieve a base level of cyber security. The framework allows organisations who don’t have the budget, size or need for a certification as comprehensive as ISO 27001 or SOC2 to level up their cyber security and evade the most common cyber attacks.
Levels to fit any organisation
All 5 Cyber Essentials controls are designed to enable multiple ways to achieve the same outcome. This makes the framework accessible to businesses of all sizes. i.e. It allows you to customise your cyber security strategy to your business size and technology complexity. A small organisation will likely have a smaller, less complex cyber security plan than a large organisation.
Let us help you uplift your cyber security to align to the Cyber Essentials framework.
The 5 controls of Cyber Essentials... the bases we help you improve:
1. Firewalls
Put controls in place so only necessary network services can be accessed over the internet. We’ll also make sure inbound and outbound traffic is secured and monitored.
2. Secure Configuration
Configure all computers and network devices to reduce vulnerabilities and ensure they are set up to only provide services necessary to the business. It also involves making sure things like inbuilt prepackaged software is removed when no longer needed, ensuring all updates are installed, ensuring there aren’t open ports that may lead to common attacks etc.
3. Security Update Management
Make sure all devices and software are protected from known vulnerabilities. So, installing patches on all operating systems and software packages.
4. User Access Control
Ensure only authorised users have access to the systems within your organisation. So, making sure users are only given access to networks when they’ve been approved. It also involves ensuring users only have access to the information they need to complete their work. For instance, staff who aren’t part of the finance team don’t need access to financial systems, general staff members don’t need access to IT services etc.
5. Malware Protection
Put controls in place to restrict the execution of malware or untrusted software on a network. So, making sure your business has up-to-date antivirus software running on all your machines which does live scanning and blocks the execution of any potentially malicious files. Also, scanning web pages to prevent staff from clicking on potentially malicious website links posted in emails etc.