The Australian Cyber Security Centre's Essential Eight Maturity Model consists of a list of essential security and mitigation strategies to help organisations tackle advanced cyberattacks. Organisations are recommended to adhere to this model to ensure the highest level of information security.
What is the Essential Eight Maturity Model?
In response to the increasing prevalence of cyberattacks, the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) recently developed a set of strategies to help organisations mitigate common attack vectors. These strategies are known as the Essential Eight.
Main objectives
The Essential Eight is divided into three main objectives, which are then further divided into eight strategies.
- Preventing malware attacks
- Limiting the extent of cybersecurity incidents
- Recovering data and system availability
Three maturity levels
Organisations can determine the maturity of their cybersecurity approach based on three maturity levels that have been defined for each of the below mentioned mitigation strategies. The maturity levels are defined as:
- Partly aligned with the intent of the mitigation strategy
- Mostly aligned with the intent of the mitigation strategy
- Fully aligned with the intent of the mitigation strategy
What does this model mean for my organization?
Organisations are recommended to implement these eight essential mitigation strategies as a baseline. Once organisations have implemented Level One mitigation strategies, they should strive to reach Maturity Level Three to ensure maximum protection for their organisational data.
At ManageEngine, we've developed a comprehensive knowledge base to help your organisation align its security strategies with the model's suggestions.
Our Essential Eight Quiz will help you determine your organisation's standing in terms of maturity level and security preparedness.
How can I improve my maturity level?
The right solutions and configurations can greatly simplify the process of reaching the highest maturity level. Although there is no single solution that can address all the strategies you need to implement, the right combination of processes and IT tools can make reaching Maturity Level Three easy.
- Application whitelisting
- Patch applications
- Configure MS Office macro settings
- User application hardening
- Restrict administrative privileges
- Patch operating systems
- Multi-factor authentication
- Daily Backups
How ManageEngine products can help
Click the button below to download the datasheet on how ManageEngine products can help in every aspect of increasing your security level.