Cyber Security · Scotland
43% of cyber attacks target small and mid-size businesses. Attackers don’t care how many people you employ — they care whether the door is open. The Jera Security Framework gives Scottish businesses structured, continuous protection: not a product you buy once, but a process that runs alongside your business every day.
The Jera Security Framework
Most IT providers sell you a security product and consider the job done. Jera operates a continuous four-stage security framework — because the threat landscape changes every day, and your defences need to change with it.
Our cyber security services
Every service in Jera’s cyber security offering addresses a specific, real attack vector. Together they form a defence-in-depth approach — where the failure of any single layer doesn’t mean the failure of the whole.
A comprehensive cyber security engagement covering your full risk landscape. We assess where you are, harden what needs fixing, monitor on an ongoing basis, and review quarterly. This isn’t a one-off purchase — it’s a continuous managed security service that keeps pace with your business and the threat environment around it.
Cyber Essentials is the UK Government-backed certification that demonstrates your business has the fundamental security controls in place. Cyber Essentials Plus adds an independent technical assessment — carrying significantly more weight with customers, insurers, and supply chain partners. Jera guides you through both — closing the gaps, preparing the evidence, and supporting you through the certification process.
You can’t fix what you can’t see. A vulnerability assessment systematically identifies weaknesses in your IT environment — unpatched software, misconfigured systems, weak access controls, exposed services — before an attacker finds them first. Jera’s vulnerability assessments give you a prioritised remediation list, not just a technical report nobody reads.
Your staff credentials — email addresses and passwords — may already be available on the dark web from previous data breaches at third-party services. Attackers use these to attempt credential stuffing attacks against your business systems, email accounts, and Microsoft 365 environment. Dark web monitoring tells you which credentials have been compromised, so you can act before the attacker does.
Over 80% of cyber attacks begin with a phishing email. Technical controls help — but the most effective defence is a workforce that can recognise and report a phishing attempt before it causes damage. Jera’s phishing awareness training uses simulated attacks to test your team, measure click rates, and deliver targeted training to the staff who need it most — changing behaviour, not just awareness.
Every laptop, desktop, mobile device, and server is a potential entry point for an attacker. Traditional antivirus is no longer sufficient — modern endpoint protection uses behavioural detection, AI-driven threat analysis, and automated response to stop attacks that signature-based tools miss entirely. Jera deploys and manages enterprise-grade endpoint protection across your entire device estate.
Choose your protection level
Not every business needs the same level of protection on day one. These bundles give you a clear starting point — and every bundle builds on the last, so upgrading is straightforward when your business is ready.
The foundational protection every Scottish business should have in place. Covers the most common attack vectors and gets you to Cyber Essentials Plus certification — increasingly required by customers, insurers, and supply chains.
Everything in Essentials, plus active vulnerability management, endpoint protection across your full device estate, and quarterly security reviews. The right level for most Scottish businesses with 20+ employees or client data obligations.
Bundle 03
The full Jera Security Framework — continuous, structured, and comprehensive. Designed for businesses with regulatory obligations, client data responsibilities, or supply chains that demand demonstrable security posture.
All bundles are priced on a fixed monthly basis. No hidden charges. Speak to us for a quote tailored to your business size and sector.
The threat landscape
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre reported a significant increase in attacks on small and medium businesses in 2024. Scotland’s businesses are not exempt — and the combination of valuable data, limited IT resource, and inconsistent security practices makes many Scottish businesses easier targets than their larger counterparts.
The most common attack vectors haven’t changed dramatically in years. Phishing. Credential stuffing using dark web data. Ransomware deployed through unpatched vulnerabilities. Supply chain compromise. These are predictable, documented, and largely preventable — with the right controls in place.
AI security — the new frontier
Shadow AI — staff using public AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot-adjacent products without IT governance — is the fastest-growing security risk in business today. It’s not malicious. It’s people trying to do their jobs better. But without governance, it creates data leakage, IP exposure, and compliance risk that most businesses aren’t aware of until it’s too late.
[Company name] had never conducted a security assessment or run security awareness training. A routine vulnerability scan identified unpatched systems, overprivileged accounts, and a Microsoft 365 configuration that hadn’t been reviewed since deployment. Dark web monitoring found credentials for 8 staff members available in breach data.
Full security assessment across all systems. Vulnerabilities prioritised and remediated. Microsoft Secure Score improved from 31% to 74% in 12 weeks. Phishing simulation run — 34% click rate identified. Monthly phishing training programme deployed. Cyber Essentials Plus achieved in 9 weeks. Dark web monitoring deployed with alerting.
Yes — and more so than a large business, for a specific reason. Large businesses have dedicated security teams, incident response plans, and cyber insurance that covers significant losses. Small businesses typically have none of these. A cyber incident that a large business absorbs as an operational inconvenience can be existential for a 20-person company. The good news: the most effective protections aren’t expensive. Multi-factor authentication, patching, email security, and phishing training — deployed properly — prevent the overwhelming majority of attacks that target businesses your size.
You probably don’t — which is why dark web monitoring exists. Credentials are stolen from third-party services (LinkedIn, Adobe, Dropbox, and thousands of other sites) and then sold or published on dark web forums and marketplaces. Attackers use them to attempt logins to business email and cloud systems — a technique called credential stuffing. Jera’s dark web monitoring continuously scans for your business email domain in known breach data sets and alerts you when a match is found. The first scan typically identifies credentials for between 5% and 20% of staff at businesses that have never monitored before. That’s not a reflection on your business — it’s a reflection on how many large services have been breached over the last decade.
For most Scottish businesses, Jera achieves Cyber Essentials Plus certification in 6 to 10 weeks. The timeline depends on two things: how many gaps the initial assessment identifies, and how quickly remediation can be completed. Businesses with a relatively well-managed IT environment often achieve CE Plus in 6 weeks. Businesses where significant remediation is needed typically take 8 to 10 weeks. We’ve never failed a client at the independent assessment stage — because we don’t submit until we’re confident the controls are in place and will pass.
Cyber Essentials is a self-assessed certification — you answer a questionnaire about your security controls and, if they meet the standard, you receive the certificate. Cyber Essentials Plus includes everything in CE but adds an independent technical assessment conducted by an accredited certification body — verifying that your controls actually work, not just that you’ve described them. CE Plus carries significantly more weight with supply chain partners, insurers, and public sector procurement. Jera guides you through both — and the most common question we get asked is “which should we go for?” The honest answer is CE Plus, if your business works with any large customers or has regulatory obligations.
The risk depends on what they’re entering into those tools and which tools they’re using. Public AI tools like ChatGPT process inputs on external servers — meaning any client data, financial information, or commercially sensitive content entered may be stored, processed, and potentially used to improve the model. This can breach GDPR, violate your professional obligations, and expose your IP. Jera’s AI governance service starts with a shadow AI audit — mapping which tools your team is using and what types of data are being entered. We then deploy Microsoft Copilot within your own Microsoft 365 environment (where data never leaves your tenant) and establish acceptable use policies that let your team benefit from AI without the associated risk.
If you’re a Jera managed security client, we activate your documented incident response plan immediately. This means: isolating affected systems to prevent spread, assessing the scope of the infection, initiating recovery from clean, tested backups, and managing communications with any relevant regulatory bodies if personal data is involved. For Jera clients with business continuity in place, a ransomware incident is a serious disruption — not an existential one. For businesses without tested backups or an incident response plan, ransomware is frequently catastrophic. If you’re reading this and don’t currently have a tested disaster recovery plan, that’s the most important conversation to have with us.
Book a free 30-minute cyber security review with Ally. We’ll give you an honest picture of your current security posture, identify your highest-priority risks, and tell you exactly what needs to happen next — with no obligation.
