Cyber Essentials Readiness for Charities

A step-by-step guide to preparing a charity for Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus. Learn how to set the scope, meet the five technical controls, handle volunteers' and staff's own devices and cloud services, and avoid the automatic-fail issues introduced with the April 2026 requirements, including MFA on cloud services and 14-day patching.

Who this course is for: Charity operations managers, IT leads, IT volunteers and suppliers preparing a charity for certification, and managers who need to understand what certification involves. Some familiarity with your charity's IT is helpful.

Self-paced online learning. Earn a Certificate of Completion on passing.

What you will learn

• Explain Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus and why funders and commissioners ask for them
• Define and document a realistic scope, including cloud services and personal devices
• Meet the five technical controls, including 14-day patching and MFA on cloud services
• Prepare evidence and answer the self-assessment question set accurately
• Prepare for Cyber Essentials Plus testing
• Plan, budget and maintain certification year after year

Course modules

• Understanding Cyber Essentials
• Scope – what's included
• Firewalls and secure configuration
• Security updates and user access
• Malware protection and evidence
• Cyber Essentials Plus and keeping it going