Established in 2003, Central Cab Care is now one of the leading taxi credit hire companies in the UK. Their professional, friendly and multi-lingual team take a proactive approach to delivering high quality customer service, ensuring customers are kept up to date throughout the claims process.
Hubtel IT have provided IT support and cyber security services to Central Cab Care for 5 years and telecoms for over 15 years and have become a trusted advisor to the business in all things IT related.
Therefore, when Central Cab Care’s Operations Director, Marie Champion, identified a need for their Company to become accredited with a cyber-security standard, in response to the increasing compliance requirements of the insurance and financial industries, it was Hubtel IT she contacted to start their journey towards achieving Cyber Essentials accreditation.
Launched in 2014 by the National Cyber Security Centre, and backed by the UK Government, Cyber Essentials is ISAME certified and considered one of the best ways of mitigating security risks and protecting organisations from most common cyber security attack types.
The standard has risen in popularity in recent times due to the dramatic increase in the number of attacks since the pandemic, partly due to the mainstream adoption of “remote working” which has increased the amount of entry points for those with malicious intent.
Receiving Cyber Essentials accreditation gives confidence to your current, and potential, customers and suppliers that your network infrastructure is secure and robust, and this can set you apart from your competitors. This was of particular importance to Central Cab Care as their business works closely with the finance industry – notoriously a target for ransomware and malware attacks.
Julian Brettle, Business Development Manager at Hubtel IT said: “We started Central Cab Care on their journey by registering them with Cyber Smart, a Cyber Essentials and GDPR compliance evaluation and monitoring platform, with whom Hubtel IT have built an excellent relationship over the past few years, via our partnership with Brigantia Partners. From there, we conducted a thorough audit of the current Central Cab Care IT infrastructure against the 5 key controls required to meet the Cyber Essentials standard and documented the findings.
These 5 key controls are:
- Firewalls and Internet gateways
- Secure configuration
- Access control
- Malware protection
- Patch management
This information was entered into the Cyber Smart portal along with supporting evidence and information used to define the scope of the certification.
The primary benefit of using the Cyber Smart solution for submission is that information can be vetted before being sent to the certification body, to make certain all inputs are correct, reducing the risk of a failed submission for inaccurate information.
Alongside an audit of their hardware and software, we reviewed Central Cab Care’s internal IT Policies to determine whether they were up-to-date and met compliancy requirements. For any policy which fell short of the mark, we liaised with CCC’s HR Manager, Rachel Green, and updated the policies together.
The submission process was completed within a few days and notification of success was received 24 hours later.”
With Hubtel IT’s support and expertise, Central Cab Care were awarded their digital certificate of Cyber Essentials compliance. Receipt of this also brings with it digital media which can be used on their website, email signatures, and letterheads. Furthermore, they received a physical “paper” certificate, for display at their offices and mark their achievement.
Commenting on their Cyber Essentials journey, Marie Champion of Central Cab Care said: “At first glance the Cyber Essentials scheme looks complex and time consuming, particularly when your IT functions perfectly well without it. But given its significance and the very real risks it can mitigate, we were delighted when Central Cab Care sailed through the process under the project leadership of Julian. I would recommend the Cyber Essentials accreditation to anyone looking to reinforce their IT security.”
If you would like more information on certifying your business to the Cyber Essentials standard, give Hubtel IT a call on 01214 680002, email us at enquiries@hubtelit.co.uk or for more information visit https://hubtelit.co.uk/it-services/.
