CAF unlocked: What the Cyber Assessment Framework means for your business

A unified approach to cyber resilience is fast becoming the reality for UK organisations. The National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) - originally created in response to the EU’s NIS Directive in 2018 - lays out four core objectives (risk management, protection, detection, and impact minimisation) that any organisation can use to assess and improve their cyber security. While CAF was designed for Operators of Essential Services (energy, transport, water, health, digital providers and government), it’s now being embraced across sectors, streamlining how teams handle procurement, regulation and board-level reporting. 

For forward-looking businesses, CAF alignment is not just a compliance tick-box but a strategic tool to benchmark against ISO 27001, NIST and other frameworks, demonstrating resilience to customers, partners and regulators.

Not sure where or how to start with CAF?

We have partnered with Waterstons, an NCSC-assured cyber, digital and technology consultancy and one of only a handful of organisations on the newly created Cyber Resilience Audit scheme. Together we are supporting businesses looking to take control of their cyber security strategies by ensuring compliance with CAF and cyber controls in regulated industries.

What is the Cyber Assessment Framework?

The CAF is a structured, outcome-focused framework published by the UK’s NCSC to help organisations assess and improve their cyber resilience. It aligns with the requirements of the 2018 NIS Regulations - Britain’s version of the EU NIS Directive - so that Operators of Essential Services (OES) can demonstrate compliance in a consistent way.

Four core objectives

CAF groups 14 high-level security objectives into four categories:

1. Managing security risk (governance, risk assessment, asset and supply-chain management) 
2. Protecting against cyberattack (policies, access control, data and system security, network resilience, staff training) 
3. Detecting cyber security events (continuous monitoring, anomaly detection) 
4. Minimising impact (incident response, recovery planning, lessons learned) 

On top of this universal foundation, each sector adds its own “Objective E” requirements (for example, physical security in energy or secure data-transmission in healthcare), ensuring the framework remains both rigorous and relevant. What began as a way to safeguard critical national infrastructure has quickly evolved into a common language for regulators, procurement teams and boards alike and, as new cyber-resilience legislation looms, CAF is on track to become the definitive indicator of “what good looks like” in UK cyber security.

We see CAF as “one framework to rule them all” and is designed to coexist with ISO 27001 or NIST mappings, not replace them, offering a concise set of Indicators of Good Practice (IGP).

What CAF means for organisations

CAF shifts cyber from a purely technical project to a board-level risk discipline:

• Self-assessment and roadmaps: Organisations start with a self-assessment against the framework’s contributing outcomes, producing a gap analysis and a prioritised improvement plan.
• Audited assurance: Regulators and large buyers will increasingly require an independently audited CAF report (through NCSC’s Cyber Resilience Audit Scheme) to demonstrate maturity.
• Procurement and third-party risk: “Are you aligned to CAF?” is already appearing in supplier questionnaires for healthcare, energy and government tenders - being able to evidence CAF compliance is fast becoming a necessity.

Which sectors are affected?

While CAF was born in the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) space, its core diagnostic applies across:

• Energy and utilities: Sector-specific “Objective E” guidance doubles down on physical security around operational technology
• Healthcare and life sciences: Extra IGPs on secure data transmission and patient privacy.
• Government and local authorities: A policy brief from the Local Government Association shows councils using CAF to benchmark digital service resilience (Local Government Association)

Why businesses should care

1. Regulatory momentum
   The Cyber Security and Resilience will give regulators more powers to enforce CAF-driven standards under the NIS Regulations.
2. Risk-based ROI
   By starting with the first CAF objective - risk management - organisations focus investment where it delivers the most reduction in cyber-risk exposure.
3. Efficiency through alignment
   Waterstons has already mapped CAF controls against ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST and Cyber Essentials. This “switch to CAF” capability shaves 3–5 weeks off typical gap analyses and avoids duplicate workstreams.
4. Continuous improvement
   CAF is not a one-time audit: it embeds a continual evidence-gathering cadence so your cyber maturity keeps pace with evolving threats, rather than stagnating after a single assessment.

Regulatory momentum is building. The upcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Act will give regulators greater power to enforce CAF-driven standards under the NIS Regulations, making compliance even more important.

The return on investment is also stronger when risk leads the way. By starting with the first CAF objective - risk management - organisations can prioritise spending where it has the greatest impact on reducing cyber risk.

There’s also efficiency in alignment. Waterstons has already mapped CAF controls against frameworks like ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST, and Cyber Essentials. This “switch to CAF” capability can save 3 to 5 weeks in typical gap analyses and eliminates the need for duplicate workstreams.

Finally, CAF supports continuous improvement. Unlike one-time audits, it encourages ongoing evidence gathering, helping your organisation stay cyber-mature as threats evolve, rather than falling behind after a single assessment.

Next steps for your business

1. Assess: Kick off a CAF self-assessment today - your first objective is risk management.
2. Align: Map existing controls (ISO 27001, NIST, Cyber Essentials) against CAF using our prebuilt templates.
3. Act: Invest where the gap analysis shows highest risk-reduction return.
4. Automate: Use Hicomply to centralise evidence-collection, dashboards and regulator-ready reports.

Ready to turn CAF into your catalyst for cyber maturity? Book a demo of Hicomply’s CAF solution and stay ahead of the curve.