| answer text |
<p>As part of the government's £2.6 billion National Cyber Strategy, the Department
for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is committed to improving cyber resilience
across the economy and promoting the take-up of accreditations and standards such
as the Cyber Essentials (CE) certification scheme. Over 122,000 certificates have
now been issued over the lifetime of the scheme, with over 25,000 organisations, including
over a third of the UK’s largest organisations, currently holding either a CE or CE
Plus certificate.</p><p>DSIT is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre
(NCSC), other government departments and industry to increase the uptake of the CE
scheme, including through requiring CE certification from suppliers using procurement
levers. For example DSIT recently announced a partnership with St James’s Place which
now requires its partners to be CE Plus certified.</p><p>The NCSC is also leading
a three year funding programme, providing support to help organisations work towards
certification. Over the past three months 369 support packages have been awarded to
small legal aid firms and charities.</p><p>Research to date has found 93% of organisations
with CE are confident of protection against common cyber attacks, compared to just
71% of non-certified organisations and 83% report a positive impact on customer and
investor confidence. Further research is being undertaken to assess the impact of
the scheme and will be published shortly.</p>
|
|
