ASD Essential 8 services

Assessment, uplift and continuous assurance aligned to the Essential Eight

Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity services
Cyber governance & compliance

The Essential 8 (E8) is a set of cybersecurity mitigation strategies and a corresponding maturity model, developed by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) through Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), designed to help organisations protect themselves from online threats that are recognised as being the root cause of most intrusion events and unplanned outages.

Who needs to comply with E8?

Australian Government agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and organisations handling sensitive data or supplying government, including SMEs should implement Essential Eight to reduce cyber risk and meet ASD and procurement expectations.
What are the eight strategies?

The eight ASD Essential Eight strategies are: Application control; Patch applications; Patch operating systems; Restrict admin privileges; Multi-factor authentication; User application hardening; Restrict macros; Regular backups.
How does complying with E8 help?

Reducing cyberattack risk, preventing common threats like ransomware, protecting critical data, improving resilience and recovery, meeting government and regulatory expectations, and strengthening overall security maturity.

Understanding Essential 8

The ASD Essential Eight is a proven framework to reduce cyber risk by addressing the most common attack techniques. It guides organisations to improve security maturity through practical controls covering prevention, detection and recovery, helping protect systems, limit the impact of incidents, and strengthen resilience against evolving cyber threats.

Thales helps organisations turn Essential Eight compliance into real cyber resilience. As an ACSC preferred partner with deep government experience, Thales delivers evidence-based assessments, tailored roadmaps and hands-on uplift that minimise disruption. With local expertise, trusted certifications and end-to-end support - from assessment to monitoring - Thales accelerates maturity, reduces risk and builds lasting confidence in your security posture

The benefits of our Essential 8 services

Compliance enables clear reporting on cyber posture using a recognised maturity model, giving boards and executives confidence that cyber risks are being actively managed and governed. Essential Eight compliance helps organisations meet customer, supplier and partner security expectations, particularly in government, defence, finance and critical infrastructure supply chains.