At a Glance
Cybersecurity breaches are a growing threat, and UK businesses need to protect themselves against them. A Cyber Essentials Plus certification, overseen by the NCSC, and facilitated by BlackBox, gives assurance that providers are using rigorous security practices. Partnering with certified cloud providers is a simple way to keep your business compliant, lower your risks and costs, improve resilience, and protect business continuity and customer trust.
The Importance of Cybersecurity for UK Businesses
Did you know that more than four in ten UK businesses reported experiencing cybersecurity breaches or attacks this year?
These are the results of the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the Home Office, highlighting the clear and present danger that UK businesses face.
What’s clear is that cyber attacks are no longer a rare and distant threat, but a reality every business needs to be prepared for.
As a result, businesses are ramping up their cybersecurity measures, a necessary exercise that protects them from various forms of breaches, from DDoS attacks to ransomware infiltrations.
One way to safeguard against cyber attacks in the cloud is to associate your business with Cyber Essentials Plus assessed service providers.
In this post, we’re exploring what Cyber Essentials Plus certification is, its benefits, and why it matters for your business.
What is Cyber Essentials Plus Certification?
Cyber Essentials Plus is a prestigious cybersecurity certification scheme managed by the UK Government in collaboration with industry experts, the NCSC and IASME Consortium. It lays out a set of best practices that organisations need to adopt to protect themselves against the most common cybersecurity risks.
When you work with a Cyber Essentials Plus partner, you’re assured of their robust security measures, helping you meet a high standard of cybersecurity practices.
The UK government’s National Cyber Security Centre, or the NCSC, offers two levels of accreditation: Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus.
Cyber Essentials vs Cyber Essentials Plus
Cyber Essentials covers a basic level of certification, laying out a foundational level of cybersecurity controls and practices within an organisation. It involves a self-assessment questionnaire that needs to be reviewed by an independent party.
A step up from this, Cyber Essentials Plus builds on the basic Cyber Essentials certification and takes things further with a more comprehensive assessment.
A Cyber Essentials Plus Assessment involves vulnerability scans, internal and external penetration tests, and other rigorous security checks, all conducted by an independent body.
These tests reveal any vulnerabilities or weaknesses that attackers could exploit, and give businesses a chance to fix them before it’s too late.
Completing this assessment successfully demonstrates that your organisation is protected and resilient against common and emerging threats.
The IASME announced Cyber Essentials (v3.2 “Willow”), which highlights:
- Passwordless guidance is recognised alongside MFA
- Expanded patching requirements that are necessary to apply all vulnerability fixes, not just high-risk patches
Cyber Essentials Plus Certification and Cloud Safety
Securing your business with robust cybersecurity practices is no longer recommended, instead it’s become critical, especially if your business is highly dependent on the cloud.
Here’s why Cyber Essentials Plus is important for cloud safety:
Strengthens Your Defence Against Cyberthreats
Certified Cyber Essentials Plus cloud providers have essential cybersecurity measures in place, from firewalls to secure user access controls.
Meet Legal and Regulatory Requirements
Certified cloud hosting providers such as BlackBox Hosting uphold strong cybersecurity standards, especially in regards to data protection laws defined by GDPR, helping your business be lawfully compliant.
Reduce Downtime and Costs from Cyber Attacks
Cyber crimes and attacks often lead to financial losses during recovery, along with fines for data breaches and lost client trust. Signing up with a cloud provider with Cyber Essentials Plus minimises these risks and helps you avoid these high costs.
Builds and Maintains Trust
A data breach can quickly erode years of trust built with your customers and stakeholders. When you partner with a certified Cyber Essentials Plus cloud provider for your data-intensive business, you’re assured that your business data will be safe.
Peace of Mind
Placing your critical business information with a certified cloud partner means you’ll experience complete peace of mind that your business is being protected and monitored in safe hands.
Cyber Essentials applies to virtual machines, hypervisors, and any cloud-based infrastructure in scope.
All controls, including patching, configuration, and network security, apply regardless of physical or virtual setup.
As your UK-based cloud hosting partner, BlackBox Hosting offers all of these benefits of Cyber Essentials Plus certification for your business.
Why Associate Your Business with BlackBox Hosting, Cyber Essentials Plus Certified Provider?
Whether you’re a startup or a large enterprise, your business will never be completely safe from various cybersecurity risks that are only becoming smarter and more complex with time. At BlackBox Hosting, we continue to remain vigilant in upgrading our security systems.
Achieving our Cyber Essentials Plus Certification is just one step towards assuring our clients of our ongoing commitment to continuously improving our security measures.
When your business partners with an accredited provider like us, you stand to gain:
- UK Sovereign Cloud Hosting: Your data never leaves the country, and adheres to stringent UK laws.
- High-Performance Cloud Infrastructure: We provide enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure at affordable prices, running at 99.999% guaranteed uptime.
- Enhanced Security: Benefit from full encryption at rest, Fortinet Next Gen Firewall, and Protection from the most aggressive threats, including DDoS and ransomware.
- Credibility: We serve 100,000 users every month across small and large enterprises.
- Certifications & Compliance with Regulations: We’re fully GDPR compliant and have received prestigious certifications and accreditations in business security, continuity, and safety, including CSA STAR Level 2, ISO 27001, ISO 20000-1, and ISO 22301 – BCMS.
- Incident Response and Recovery: We offer reliable incident response and recovery through our BaaS and DRaaS services for minimal downtime, secure backups, and uninterrupted business continuity.
While you continue to focus on your goals, leave it to us to protect your business.
Contact us today to book a consultation with our team and assess your cybersecurity readiness.
