With the multitude of security incidents in the news citing unauthorised access to personal and sensitive information, mitigating cyber security issues has never been more important.
There has been a legislative push to increase penalties for data breaches, resulting in an ever-increasing need for Board members to understand their organisation’s security posture.
An Essential 8 audit is a government endorsed maturity framework aimed at strengthening all organisations cyber security posture that every business should consider.
The Essential 8
The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) recommends the top eight security mitigation strategies deemed to be the most effective for mitigating cyber security incidents. These Essential 8 strategies are based on the ACSC’s experience of observing a wide and varying range of incidents that represent the core subset from a much larger set of 37 security strategies and supporting controls.
The eight strategies are grouped into three core themes: prevent attacks; limit impact; and maintain data availability. They represent a clear link back to the core security principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
The ACSC provides a maturity level that firms can baseline their implementation progress from Maturity Level Zero through to Maturity Level Three. Importantly, the Essential 8 is not viewed as one size fits all and your maturity level should be aligned to your risk profile.
Level 0
Indicates weaknesses in an organisation’s overall cyber security posture.
Level 1
Mitigates commodity tradecraft with publicly available tools.
Level 2
Mitigates adversaries who invest more time in a target with more effective techniques.
Level 3
Focused on adversaries who are more adaptive and less reliant on public tools and methods.
Conducting an Essential 8 Audit serves as a baseline for your organisations’ security controls, helping to understand your existing security maturity and defensive posture, in alignment with the ACSC Essential 8. Aligning to the Essential 8 is a robust starting point for organisations looking to protect digital assets and enhance customer trust.
How does an Essential 8 Audit add value to your business?
If you are a service provider to government, regulated entities, or private enterprise, and you have access to critical and sensitive information, your organisation could benefit from an Essential 8 audit. If you have not conducted an Essential 8 audit, you may not have an adequate level of security controls maturity to maintain contract compliance or secure new business.
An Essential 8 Audit will provide detailed insight into your cyber security controls posture, providing you with detailed recommendations to improve your controls maturity, strength and resilience.
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The value of an Essential 8 audit: Measure, protect, minimise
The Essential 8 is a robust framework for benchmarking security controls. The maturity levels provide a clear roadmap for improvement for organisations once maturity and risk have been baselined. The multi-layer approach of the Essential 8 protects organisations against various threats common security risks.
Should your organisation suffer a breach, the implementation of the controls will assist to minimise the impact and contain any potential damage.
The Essential 8 framework is pragmatic and cost effective. An investment in an audit and maturity benchmarking is a high impact exercise for any organisation.
Benchmark and enhance your security posture and defend your business against the impacts of cyber threats by implementing the Essential 8 framework to better manage your cyber risk.
Contact our team of experts to assist you in all your risk and cyber security needs.
