ACSC Releases Updated Essential Eight Maturity Model

The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has released updates to its Essential Eight Maturity Model. The model assists organizations in determining the maturity of their implementation of the Essential Eight – ACSC’s list of the top mitigation strategies to help organizations protect their systems against threats. The mitigation strategies include: Application Whitelisting, Patch Applications, Configure Microsoft Office Macro Settings, User Application Hardening, Restrict Administrative Privileges, Patch Operating Systems, Multi-Factor Authentication, and Daily Backups. For each mitigation strategy, the model identifies three levels of maturity: Level One (Partially aligned with the intent of mitigation strategy); Level Two (Mostly aligned “…”); and Level Three (Fully aligned “…”).