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M.A. Ford Europe achieves Cyber-Essentials certification

As cyber-security and data protection compliance becomes an increasingly prominent IT issue within business, M.A. Ford Europe has now been awarded a Cyber-Essentials Certificate, covering both its UK operations, which certifies that its risk management and compliance procedures meet national standards.


Cyber Essentials is a UK government scheme, which encourages organisations to adopt good information security practices, including assurance frameworks and security controls to protect information from online threats.

As part of the process to become GDPR compliant, M.A. Ford Europe evaluated its current IT security and policies and undertook a detailed risk assessment in conjunction with its IT partner from which it was able to highlight the changes that needed to be implemented.

Among the changes that were made, M. A. Ford Europe updated its security software and revised its staff IT security policy. As a result of the extensive work that the company had already put in place to improve data protection and security, the company was awarded the certificate at the first attempt following its assessment by Extec Ltd, working with accreditation body, IRM.

David Ward, Managing Director with M.A. Ford Europe, explained: “Among the diverse range of risks that can be faced by business, cyber security issues can be the most severe, as in some cases the impact isn’t visible until after the damage is done. Cyber-essentials and the wide ranging support work that we have implemented behind it has increased protection not only for our own business, but for our customers too.”

He added: “This certification demonstrates that we are taking action to mitigate the risks and its reassuring to know that even prior to our assessment, we had already put things in place to ensure a high level of IT security and policy.”

Cyber-Essentials was developed in collaboration with a number of industry partners, including the Information Security Forum, the Information Assurance for Small and Medium Enterprises Consortium and the British Standards Institution, and was launched in 2014 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

 

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