If you’re looking to get the cyber security basics right and form a solid foundation of defence for your organisation, the Essential Eight is a powerful starting point. Its eight mitigation strategies are applicable to businesses of all sizes, giving structure and cohesiveness to your efforts in protecting your data and network.
It doesn’t just secure your organisation – the Essential Eight helps you stay on top of your compliance obligations with greater ease. It provides a clear and measurable set of controls that demonstrates you take cybersecurity seriously and follow best practices.
Implementing the Essential Eight is more than just good practice – it’s becoming expected from regulators and industry partners. Before we dive into how it improves compliance, let’s touch on the enforcement of the Essential Eight in Australia.
Is the Essential Eight Mandatory?
For some entities yes, but for most businesses, it’s not legally required.
As it stands, the government has made the Essential Eight mandatory for all 98 non-corporate Commonwealth entities (NCCEs). These are, basically, Australian government departments and agencies.
To begin with they only had to comply with the top four security controls of the Essential Eight. Then, in June of 2022, it was mandated that they need to implement all eight strategies. Plus, every five years, they’ll be facing a full audit.
That gives you a bit of an idea as to how seriously the Australian government takes the Essential Eight. So, while private businesses aren’t legally required to implement it, you can expect more partners and regulators to require that you do.
How the Essential Eight Improves Compliance
Adhering to the Essential Eight makes meeting your compliance obligations a whole lot simpler. Here’s how:
Standardised Framework:
The standardised framework of the Essential Eight gives clarity and consistency to your cybersecurity agenda. You’re not wading through the noise of cyber advice bombarding businesses every day – it gives you a plan that works, and you just need to stick to it. When an auditor comes knocking, you’ll easily be able to prove you’re doing the right thing.
Targets Key Vulnerabilities:
The eight mitigation strategies plug up the holes in your defences that hackers love to exploit. Outdated software or ill-configured macros won’t pose a risk, because you’ll have dealt with them via the framework. You’re less exposed to fine-inducing breaches and fines that would put you on the radar of regulators.
Supports Broader Regulations:
There are long-standing standards and frameworks in the tech world that many companies adhere to. An example would be ISO 27001, or the NIST Framework. You don’t have to choose between the Essential Eight and any other standards you’re implementing. It aligns well with other frameworks.
Facilitates Maturity Checks:
The maturity levels of the Essential Eight are a tiered indication of where you’re at in your cybersecurity journey, where you’ve come from and what you need to achieve next. They help you plan, and they help you assess what’s working. Importantly, they show continuous progress, which stakeholders and regulators love to see.
Reduces the Impact of Incidents:
The Essential Eight reduces the impact of a cyber breach or hack. You will have disaster recovery processes in place, and recent backups that can be swiftly instated. This resilience allows you to stay operational and reduce the fallout from a cyber-attack, which is key to being compliant.
Shows Due Diligence:
Having the Essential Eight indicates to everybody how seriously you take protecting your business and customer data and your network. If something does go wrong, you can show you were doing everything in your power to prevent a cyber incident. This can help with compliance reviews and with smoothing out legal situations in the event of a breach or hack.
The Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) Scheme
Let’s touch on the Australia’s Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) Scheme to highlight compliance requirements for Australian businesses.
Under the NDB, if your organisation turns over more than $3 million, you must report a breach to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) if it is likely to cause serious harm to the people affected.
‘Serious harm’ includes items such as identity theft, financial loss, physical harm and reputational damage. If you don’t make the report and ‘serious harm’ is a consequence, you will face legal trouble and reputational damage of your own.
With the Essential Eight in place, firstly the likelihood of a breach happening in the first place is vastly reduced. Secondly, if an attacker does find their way in, you can show regulators you took reasonable steps to protect your data. This goes a long way in showing intent to guard against these events.
Where to Start with the Essential Eight
Good cybersecurity and good compliance go hand in hand but, unfortunately, they can seem incredibly overwhelming.
They don’t need to be though. Take it step by step with the Essential Eight, starting with patching your apps and operating systems, blocking macros and turning on MFA. From there, work through the rest at a pace that suits your team and budget. You’re improving both your security and your compliance.
If you’d like professional guidance on implementing the Essential Eight, boosting your cybersecurity and improving your compliance, Smile IT is here for you. Our expert team can do an assessment of your current security status and make recommendations to get to exactly where you need to be.
Book your cyber security health check today, and let’s get your organisation compliant!
When he’s not writing tech articles or turning IT startups into established and consistent managed service providers, Peter Drummond can be found kitesurfing on the Gold Coast or hanging out with his family!