Cyber Essentials Knowledge Hub
Plain answers on scope, the five controls and the Danzell question set, written by Apexward Group, an IASME Certification Body. Find what a requirement means, check your software, and see what to fix before you apply.
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How the scheme works
What Cyber Essentials covers, how certification and renewal work, and what fails an assessment.
- What Cyber Essentials is
- How Cyber Essentials certification works
- What changed in Danzell and Requirements v3.3
- Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus compared
- Automatic fail questions
- Certificate validity and renewal
- Common reasons for failing Cyber Essentials
- Cyber Essentials fees
- Policies for Cyber Essentials
Scope
What has to be included, from cloud services and personal devices to home workers and sub-sets.
The five controls
What firewalls, secure configuration, security updates, user access and malware protection require.
Supported software and updates
Which software counts as supported, and how the 14-day update rule works.
Answering the questions
What each section of the questionnaire checks, and what a complete answer covers.
- How to answer the Cyber Essentials questions
- Answering the organisation and scope questions (A1 and A2)
- Answering the firewall questions (A4)
- Answering the secure configuration questions (A5)
- Answering the security update questions (A6)
- Answering the user access control questions (A7)
- Answering the malware protection questions (A8)
Cyber Essentials Plus
What the technical audit tests, the three-month window, and how to prepare.
Check where you stand
Software support checker
Enter a product and version to see whether it is still supported, and the date its latest update must be installed by under the 14-day rule.
Check your softwareReadiness checker
Answer yes or no to the Danzell requirements. See any automatic fails and what to fix before you apply.
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Get an exact price for Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus from the scope you describe.
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Set up the MCP serverWhere this guidance comes from
Articles follow NCSC Cyber Essentials: Requirements for IT infrastructure v3.3 and the Danzell question set. Applies to assessment accounts created from 27 April 2026. Each article lists its sources and the date it was last reviewed, and the sources are checked every week.
This is guidance, not a marking decision. Your Certification Body marks your submitted assessment. For the scheme's own material, see the IASME Cyber Essentials Knowledge Hub and the NCSC Cyber Essentials pages.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Software support data from endoflife.date (MIT licence) and vendor release pages. Older guides remain in Resources.