The Experts EXPLAINER: WHAT IS THE ASD ESSENTIAL EIGHT?

The ASD Essential Eight (E8) is a set of eight cybersecurity mitigation strategies developed by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to help organisations and individuals protect themselves from cyber threats. The ASD Essential Eight is designed to be a baseline set of security controls organisations of all sizes can implement. They do not guarantee perfect security, but they can help significantly reduce the risk of cyber attacks.

The idea behind the Essential Eight is that as you apply each of the eight identified areas to your business, you lock down and secure your business from threats like Malware, Viruses, Phishing, Identity Theft, Fraud, Data Loss, and Harassment. While there is a list of Eight categories, each category has multiple sub-tasks and three levels of achievement.

The Essential Eight strategies are:

1. Application control: Using software to control which