The value of having the Cyber Essentials accreditation is that you have thought about the consequences of a breach and have put procedures in place and erected barriers to keep the data secure – and have plans in place on how to reverse the damage if a breach has evaded those controls that will have been put in place. Unfortunately, no one is immune to every possible cyber attack, and many companies have experienced attacks in the past 12 months – sometimes the breach is caused by an inadvertent click on a bad email, or clicking on a link on a website that causes software to be downloaded and installed on your computer. You won’t be the first person to have made this mistake, this can happen to anyone.
The other value is of course that your clients know that their data is safe. Some of your clients might insist on you having the accreditation.