As part of our ongoing commitment to guard ourselves against common security threats, we’re delighted to share that our ICT team has retained the Cyber Essentials certificate. The Cyber Essentials certification is awarded to companies who meet their strict security standards, which include use of firewalls, secure configuration, user access control, malware protection and patch management.

This accreditation is supported by the Government and the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre) who set  a range of security controls that can protect organisations against the majority of common cyber-attacks.

Thanks to the hard work of our team, we successfully achieved all the requirements of Cyber Essentials. This forms a key part of our ongoing commitment to cyber security best practice and will provide peace of mind to our customers that we are serious about information security across all aspects of our business.

A key player in ensuring we retained the certification was our ICT Security Officer, Samantha Boardman. Sam joined Halton Housing in 2020 and is responsible for the day-to-day security of our ICT networks servers and systems, protecting colleagues from threats online and building awareness of current cyber security issues. Only 7% of the IT security workforce in Europe are females. Read more about Sam on her profile for International Women’s Day titled: A female in cyber security: Challenging the norm.

Not stopping there, the team are now aiming to gain the ‘Plus’ certification, the highest level of certification, which will further strengthen our cyber security credentials.

The certificate will place Halton Housing on the Government's website in the directory of organisations that hold Cyber Essentials.