Outlaw IT Consultants Earns Cyber Essentials Certification

We’re super excited to announce that Outlaw IT Consultants is officially Cyber Essentials certified!

It’s the kind of milestone that doesn’t come with balloons, but it’s one we’re genuinely proud of, and we wanted to shout about it a bit, because it’s a great external stamp of approval on the standards we hold ourselves to.

So What Is Cyber Essentials?

If you’re not familiar, Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed certification, run through the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), that shows an organisation has strong technical controls in place against the most common cyber threats out there.

It covers five key areas:

• Firewalls. Securing internet connections at the boundary.
• Secure configuration. Devices and software set up properly, not left on default settings.
• User access control. Making sure people only have access to what they need.
• Malware protection. Active, up to date protection against malicious software.
• Patch management. Keeping systems updated against known vulnerabilities.

The scheme focuses on the fundamentals that make the biggest difference. Most successful cyber attacks on small businesses don’t involve anything fancy, they exploit exactly these kinds of gaps. Getting the basics rock solid closes the door on the vast majority of common threats.

Why This Matters to Us

We talk to clients every day about getting the security fundamentals right: patching, access control, Defender configuration. Earning this certification means we get to hold ourselves to exactly the same bar we set for everyone else.

What This Means for You

A few genuinely useful things come out of this for our clients:

• Verified, not just claimed. Our own security has been checked against a recognised national standard, not just described in a sales brochure.
• Supply chain boxes ticked. More and more contracts require suppliers (and their IT providers) to hold Cyber Essentials. If that’s on your radar, we’ve got you covered.
• A partner who walks the walk. When we recommend Conditional Access policies, better patch management, or tighter access controls as part of your Microsoft 365 Business Premium setup, it’s coming from a business assessed against those same standards.

Building on Solid Ground

Cyber Essentials covers the fundamentals brilliantly. The Microsoft 365 security work we do with clients, the Conditional Access policies, Defender configuration, and Intune device management covered in our Defender Diaries series, builds on top of that same strong foundation.

Curious where your own business stands? That’s exactly what we look at in our Free M365 Assessment.