Business cyber security review checklist
Prepare a cyber security review with SCG Solutions: scope, Microsoft 365 access, endpoints, network security, recovery and Cyber Essentials readiness.
Prepare a cyber security review →Managed cyber security for UK businesses: endpoint detection and response, network protection, Microsoft 365 security and support preparing for Cyber Essentials.
A practical defence starts with several layers that cover one another. Check Point next-generation firewalls protect the network edge and apply consistent policy across sites, while Check Point Harmony Endpoint combines preventative controls with endpoint detection and response (EDR) on laptops, desktops and servers.
Huntress Managed EDR adds continuous behavioural monitoring, investigation and response backed by a 24/7 security operations team. It is designed to find suspicious activity that preventative controls or conventional antivirus may miss, then contain and remediate it rather than simply adding another alert to an unattended dashboard.
Microsoft 365 is part of the security boundary, not just the productivity suite. We review multi-factor authentication, administrator privileges, joiner and leaver access, email protection, device management and the Microsoft Defender capabilities included in the licences you already hold. Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes Defender for Business for organisations of up to 300 users; server protection requires separate licensing.
Cyber Essentials turns the baseline into a measurable programme. We help define what is in scope, assess the five controls — firewalls, secure configuration, security update management, user access control and malware protection — close the gaps and prepare evidence for assessment. Cyber Essentials Plus covers the same controls and adds independent hands-on technical testing through an IASME-licensed Certification Body.
Start with the controls you can verify: multi-factor authentication on staff and administrator accounts, a defined process for removing access when somebody leaves, and backups you have successfully restored from. We review those foundations alongside your existing licences and equipment before recommending additional products.
What we would push back on is the idea that any single purchase solves this. A firewall does not stop somebody clicking a link, endpoint protection does not help if an attacker has a valid password, and none of it matters if the backup has never been tested. Security is a set of controls that cover each other, and a supplier presenting one as the answer is selling rather than advising.
For UK businesses comparing endpoint security solutions, start with the devices and the response you need. Antivirus, EDR and a managed service can work together, but they describe different parts of the protection. Compare the tools and the people operating them on the same scope.
On a smaller screen, scroll the comparison horizontally.
| Option | Purpose | What to agree |
|---|---|---|
| Prevention and antivirus | Aim to block malicious files or unsafe activity using the controls available in the chosen product. | Check policy, update status, supported operating systems and who follows up when a threat is blocked. Prevention alone does not define an investigation or recovery service. |
| Endpoint detection and response (EDR) | Collect and assess endpoint activity to help identify, investigate and contain suspicious behaviour. | Confirm which devices are supported, what telemetry is available, who monitors alerts and who can authorise containment. Owning a licence does not establish that somebody is operating it. |
| Managed detection and response | Add an agreed monitoring, investigation and response service around the security tools in scope. | Agree monitoring hours, response authority, escalation contacts, remediation responsibilities and reporting. Check whether coverage is endpoint-only or also includes identity, email or other systems. |
Check the current Microsoft Defender for Business scope and Huntress guidance on evaluating managed EDR alongside the proposed service responsibilities.
Managed next-generation firewalls and Harmony Endpoint protection for network policy, ransomware, malware, phishing and endpoint detection and response.
Continuous endpoint monitoring with investigation, containment and remediation backed by a 24/7 security operations team.
Identity, email, device and data controls configured around how your organisation works, including Microsoft Defender capabilities where licensed.
Scope definition, gap assessment, remediation and evidence preparation across the five Cyber Essentials controls and the Plus technical audit.
We are independent of any single network or vendor, so the recommendation follows the requirement.
Network, endpoint and Microsoft 365 controls are matched to the risk and the tools you already have.
Network and vendor names and logos are the trademarks of their respective owners, shown to describe the services SCG Solutions supplies.
Practical buying guidance
Use an SCG Solutions guide to gather requirements, avoid common compatibility assumptions and prepare a useful supplier conversation.
Prepare a cyber security review with SCG Solutions: scope, Microsoft 365 access, endpoints, network security, recovery and Cyber Essentials readiness.
Prepare a cyber security review →Cyber Essentials is the government-backed baseline built around five technical controls: firewalls, secure configuration, security update management, user access control and malware protection. Both certification levels assess those same controls; Cyber Essentials Plus adds independent hands-on technical testing to verify that they work in practice. Certification is increasingly requested in supply chains and is required for some government contracts. We help you define the scope, identify and remediate gaps, and prepare evidence; assessment and certification are handled through an IASME-licensed Certification Body.
Antivirus primarily blocks known malicious files. EDR continuously records and analyses activity on endpoints so suspicious behaviour can be investigated and contained, including activity that does not look like a conventional virus. Managed EDR adds the people and process: Huntress provides continuous monitoring and a 24/7 security operations team to investigate alerts, contain threats and support remediation instead of leaving your team to operate the tool alone.
They protect different parts of the same environment. Check Point controls and inspects network traffic and can protect endpoints; Huntress Managed EDR monitors endpoint behaviour and supports active response; Microsoft 365 controls identity, email, files, devices and cloud access. We start with what you already license and where your risks sit, then design the smallest sensible combination rather than duplicating controls.
ISP-level protection tends to be broad rather than granular, and may only cover certain categories of traffic. Bandwidth is not the safety net people assume either — the volume of data in a DDoS attack can overwhelm even the largest service provider, and plenty of attacks work without needing much volume at all. Size is no defence: attacks are now cheap and easy to buy, so small organisations are targeted routinely, sometimes only as a stepping stone to reach the intended victim. And most DDoS attacks go undetected, leaving the cause of the outage unidentified and you with no reading on how vulnerable you still are. DDoS Shield comes in tiers, needs no in-house expertise and no extra hardware, scales as your online presence grows, and gives you traffic information and reports on mitigated attacks instantly or on a regular basis.
It changes behaviour when the feedback lands at the moment of the click rather than in a quarterly slide deck. Every simulated email is turned into a piece of training on the social engineering signal the person missed. Assessments measure users' security knowledge so you have a baseline to work from, template selection adapts to each person's training and phishing history, and reporting rolls up at user, group and organisational level so you can see where the risk actually sits. The phish alert button matters as much as the simulations: it gives staff a safe way to forward an email threat to your team for analysis and removal, which turns them from the weak point into a reporting channel. Training is available in over 35 languages, and the reporting doubles as evidence towards Cyber Essentials, ISO 27001 and cyber insurance requirements.
By being specific rather than blanket. Information is classified by business rule, sharing is governed by user permissions, and endpoints and data streams are monitored to identify risky movement — including optical character recognition, so text sitting inside an image or screenshot is not a blind spot. Access rules can tell a secure managed laptop from an unmanaged personal device, permitting full access on one and restricting sensitive attachments on the other, rather than banning either outright. The same policies can be written to meet regulatory requirements in more than one country. Insider threat prevention sits alongside this, scoring behaviour so risky patterns surface before they turn into fraud, cyber sabotage or a straightforward accident.
Security monitoring runs around the clock, so a potential threat is identified and addressed promptly rather than sitting unnoticed until Monday morning. Suspicious content can be opened in a sandbox, well away from your network, while it is investigated further. If there is an actual breach, incident response is about minimising the damage and getting you back to normal operation quickly. It also matters who you ring: every SCG Solutions client has a named local director rather than a call queue, with 24/7 UK-based support behind them.
With an audit, because assessing your infrastructure, policies and processes tells you which gaps actually matter before you spend anything on tooling. In practice the first three findings are nearly always the same: accounts without multi-factor authentication, former employees whose access still works, and backups nobody has ever restored from. All three are cheap to fix and none needs new hardware.
Yes. Employee awareness training sits alongside firewalls and endpoint protection, because most breaches start with a person rather than a device. What makes it work is being specific to your business — a session about the kinds of message your staff genuinely receive is worth considerably more than a generic course, and short refreshers beat one long session everybody forgets.
Compare related options, check what needs to work together and prepare the details for a useful conversation.
We deliver this across the UK. These 8 are where a director is actually based — each page names who you would be dealing with, and what the local economy is made of.
Explore support for offices, professional practices and warehouse teams in Hillingdon and its business centres:
Speak to our security specialists about protecting your business with a comprehensive, layered approach to cyber security.