Win UK contracts with Cyber Essentials.
Venvera is Cyber Essentials compliance software that scopes and evidences the five NCSC controls, ready for certification and Cyber Essentials Plus, the baseline UK government and enterprise buyers require before they will put you on the supplier list.
How much of Cyber Essentials do you already have?
Pick the framework you already run. Every control domain that appears in both is listed with the requirement reference on each side, so you can see the reusable part of your existing programme before you scope any new work.
A row means the two requirements cover the same ground, so one implementation and one set of evidence can usually serve both. It does not mean satisfying one certifies the other: each framework keeps its own scope, wording and assessment, and some requirements have no counterpart at all. Treat this as a starting map for planning, then confirm each row against the requirement text.
Cyber Essentials compliance software for the five NCSC controls
Venvera is Cyber Essentials compliance software for UK organisations certifying through IASME. It defines your scope, then tracks 24 controls across the five NCSC technical control themes: firewalls, secure configuration, security update management, user access control and malware protection. Each control names the evidence an assessor expects, including the 14-day patching window for critical and high-severity updates and the removal of unsupported software. Your self-assessment answers, the annual renewal date and the extra technical testing that Cyber Essentials Plus adds are held in the same record.
What is Cyber Essentials, and why do UK buyers ask for it?
Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed certification, developed by the NCSC and run by IASME, built on five technical controls that stop around 80% of common cyber attacks. It matters commercially because it is a hard requirement to bid for many UK government contracts that touch personal or sensitive data, and prime contractors and enterprise buyers increasingly ask for it before they will add you to their supplier list. Getting certified - and stepping up to the audited Cyber Essentials Plus - is what unlocks those tenders and clears you through vendor due diligence, instead of being screened out at the procurement gate.
Every one of the five NCSC controls, scored before you submit.
Cyber Essentials is judged on five technical controls, and Venvera scores you against each one using the exact IASME question set: firewalls, secure configuration, security update management, user access control and malware protection. Each control breaks down into its specific pass or fail criteria, so you know whether you would pass before you pay the assessment fee, not after.
- Firewalls: boundary firewall rules and internet gateway configuration
- Secure configuration: default passwords changed, unnecessary services removed
- Security update management: critical patches applied within 14 days
- User access control: least privilege, unique accounts, admin separation
- Malware protection: anti-malware, allow-listing or sandboxing verified
Draw your certification boundary before the assessor questions it.
A vague scope is the fastest way to fail. Venvera helps you document exactly which devices, networks, cloud services and locations sit inside your boundary, pin down your boundary devices, and account for BYOD and remote workers - so the assessor sees a clean, defensible scope on day one.
- Device inventory: desktops, laptops, servers and mobile devices
- Network boundary mapping with firewall and gateway identification
- Cloud services scoped under the shared responsibility model
- BYOD and remote working arrangements documented
- Scope diagram ready for assessor submission
Find every gap while there is still time to fix it.
Run a structured gap assessment that maps your current posture to every Cyber Essentials requirement and tells you what is compliant, partially compliant or missing. Venvera hands back a prioritised remediation plan so your effort goes where the certification actually depends on it.
- Requirement-level gaps across all five controls
- Three-level scoring: compliant, partial, non-compliant
- Prioritised remediation plan with effort estimates
- Tasks assigned with owners and deadlines
- Re-assessment workflow to confirm fixes before you submit
One evidence pack for the questionnaire and the Plus audit.
Collect and organise the proof you need for the self-assessment and for the hands-on Cyber Essentials Plus test in one place. Firewall configs, patch reports, access control lists, anti-malware results - each tagged to the control it supports, so your assessor gets a complete pack instead of a scavenger hunt.
- Evidence organised by control area and requirement
- Any format: screenshots, PDFs, CSVs, configuration exports
- Automatic timestamping so freshness is never in doubt
- Completeness dashboard showing what is still missing
- Assessor-ready export for Plus verification
Pass the hands-on Plus audit the first time.
Cyber Essentials Plus adds a live technical audit on top of the questionnaire, and a failed Plus assessment costs you time and the re-test fee. Venvera walks you through every test area the assessor will run - external and internal vulnerability scans, email and web defences, cloud MFA - so you find the weak spots before the assessor does.
- External vulnerability scan readiness checklist
- Internal vulnerability assessment preparation
- Email defence testing for malicious attachments and links
- Web browsing defence against malicious downloads
- Multi-factor authentication verified across cloud services
Stay certified the day a tender asks for it.
A certificate that lapses between renewals is the same as no certificate when a bid lands. One dashboard shows your readiness across all five controls, tracks your 12-month renewal date, and flags the moment a control drifts out of compliance - so you are still valid when procurement checks.
- Overall readiness score with a per-control breakdown
- Submission-readiness indicator across the five controls
- 12-month renewal date tracked with advance reminders
- Continuous monitoring between certifications
- Year-on-year comparison to show improvement
Your Cyber Essentials work counts toward ISO 27001 and NIST.
Cyber Essentials is the baseline, not the ceiling. Venvera maps every control you implement across ISO 27001 Annex A, NIST CSF and your other frameworks, so the firewall, patching and access-control evidence you gather for certification carries straight into your next audit instead of being redone from scratch.
- Controls mapped across ISO 27001, NIST CSF and more
- Cyber Essentials evidence reused across frameworks
- See coverage overlap before you start the next certification
- One control library feeding every framework you run
The spreadsheet or Venvera.
Cyber Essentials, answered.
Get certification-ready for the tender.
Start with a free gap report across the five Cyber Essentials controls - 10 minutes, no email to start.
✓ Every paid plan: audit-ready in 90 days, or your money back*
10 minutes · no email to start · no credit card · yours to keep