The Essential Eight Explained: How to Mitigate The Threat of Cyber Crimes

Cybercrime is everywhere nowadays. And with the increased reliance on the internet sparked by the pandemic, it’s no surprise that cyber attacks are growing in severity, complexity, and frequency. According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s (ACSC) Annual Cyber Threat Report, in FY21 alone, 67,500 cyber crimes were reported, representing a cyber attack every 8 minutes (compared to 10 minutes in FY20).

It’s hair-raising to think that cyber attacks can happen to anyone, and it’s why you should implement better cyber security methods to mitigate the threats of cybercrime and theft online. And this is where the Essential Eight—the most effective of a series of mitigation strategies—come in.What is the Essential Eight?

As described by the ACSC, the Essential Eight “is a series of baseline mitigation strategies taken from the Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents recommended for organisations.” The Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents are a collection of mitigation strategies developed by the ACSC to help businesses reduce cyber security risks. And the eight most effective of these strategies form the Essential Eight.

You should note that the Essential Eight protects Microsoft Windows-based internet-connected networks, and substitute mitigation strategies should be explored for other environments.

The Essential Eight Summarised

The following table summarises the Essential Eight and is extracted from the ACSC’s Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents for convenience.