Align with U.K. Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) resilience

See how CAF helps organizations understand cyber risk to essential functions, identify gaps, and improve resilience over time.

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How does CAF relate to cybersecurity?

The UK Cyber Assessment Framework helps organizations assess and strengthen cyber resilience around the functions that matter most. Rather than acting as a certification or a one-size-fits-all checklist, CAF gives organizations a structured way to understand how well cyber risks to essential functions are being managed, identify gaps and improve resilience over time.

CAF is built around four high-level objectives that describe what good cyber resilience should achieve for essential functions. These are supported by principles, contributing outcomes and indicators of good practice, which help organizations assess whether cyber risk is being managed appropriately.

CAF cybersecurity objectives

Managing security risk

This objective focuses on governance, risk management, decision making and the wider structures needed to understand and manage cyber risk across essential systems and services.

Protecting against cyberattacks

This objective focuses on the safeguards needed to protect essential systems, services and data from cyberattacks, including secure design, access control and protective security measures.

Detecting cybersecurity events

This objective focuses on monitoring, visibility and the ability to detect cybersecurity events that could affect essential functions before they cause greater disruption.

Minimizing the impact of incidents

This objective focuses on response, recovery and learning, helping organizations reduce disruption, restore essential functions and improve resilience after an incident.

What happens if you do not meet CAF expectations?

CAF is not a general certification scheme like Cyber Essentials. In practice, the impact of falling short depends on the regulatory or sector context. For organizations in regulated or high-impact environments, weak CAF outcomes can lead to more scrutiny, additional remediation work or difficulty showing that cyber risks to essential functions are being managed appropriately. NCSC also makes clear that target levels and expectations are set by the relevant regulator or oversight body, not by CAF alone.

Who should consider CAF?

The main focus of CAF is the resilience of the organization delivering the essential function.

Organizations responsible for essential functions, especially in sectors like energy, health care, transport, water, digital infrastructure and government.
Organizations that support critical services or operate in regulated environments where stronger cyber resilience is expected.
MSPs and service providers that support these organizations and need a practical reference for resilience planning.

What are some common challenges with CAF?

For many organizations, the challenge is not understanding CAF at a high level. It is applying it in a way that is specific to essential functions, proportionate to the risk, and mature enough to stand up to real assessment. Common challenges include:

Defining the essential functions that need to be protected.
Translating outcome-focused principles into operational practice.
Using indicators of good practice without turning them into a rigid checklist.
Aligning improvement work to the profile or resilience level expected by the relevant oversight body.
Maintaining evidence, judgement and consistency across assessments over time.

What are some common challenges with CAF?

Benefits of using CAF

CAF can help organizations:

Focus cybersecurity efforts on the essential functions that matter most.
Assess cyber resilience in a more structured, outcome-focused way.
Identify practical areas for improvement over time.
Support conversations with regulators, oversight bodies and key stakeholders.
Use sector guidance and profiles where relevant to shape target outcomes.

CAF technological and operational areas

CAF is broader than technology alone, but technology still plays a major role in how cyber resilience shows up in practice.

Governance and risk visibility

CAF starts with understanding the systems, services and risks that support essential functions. That makes visibility, oversight and informed decision making an important part of the overall resilience picture.

Protection of systems and services

CAF places strong emphasis on protecting the systems and services behind essential functions, including secure administration, access and security measures that reduce exposure to cyberattacks.

Detection and monitoring

CAF expects organizations to have the visibility and monitoring needed to identify cybersecurity events that could affect essential functions and act before disruption becomes more severe.

Response, recovery and improvement

CAF is not just about prevention. It also focuses on responding effectively, restoring essential functions and improving resilience through lessons learned after incidents.

How Acronis helps

Acronis can support selected technological and operational areas within a broader CAF approach. CAF itself is outcome-focused and broader than any single platform, but the right capabilities can still help organizations strengthen resilience across visibility, protection, detection and response.

Acronis RMM and Security Posture Management

Acronis can help improve visibility across endpoints and Microsoft 365 environments, support patching and vulnerability management, and reduce configuration drift across systems that may sit behind important services.

Acronis EDR / XDR

Acronis EDR and XDR can help strengthen detection, investigation and response across exposed attack surfaces, supporting the broader CAF objective around identifying and acting on cybersecurity events.

Acronis Data Loss Prevention

Acronis DLP can help reduce the risk of sensitive information being exposed or mishandled across users, endpoints and transfer channels. That can be relevant where essential functions depend on the secure handling of operational or sensitive data.

Acronis Security Awareness Training

Acronis Security Awareness Training can help reinforce safer day-to-day behavior and support stronger user awareness around cyber risk, phishing and suspicious activity.

Acronis Compliance Navigator

View the mapping to explore how Acronis capabilities align with key CAF objectives