How to Set Up Your BlockMark Account and Access Your Cyber Essentials Certificate
Once you've achieved Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus certification, your digital certificate and badge are issued through BlockMark Registry. This guide takes you through setting up your BlockMark account step by step. It also covers how to download your certificate and how to add your certification badge to your website and email signature. The steps follow IASME's official guide, BlockMark Registry Certificates – A User's Guide, which is linked again at the end of this article.
For Get Cyber Certified clients
Whether you've used our Marking Only service or one of our Supported Services, your route to BlockMark is the same.
Your pass report includes a link to BlockMark. When your assessment is certified, your pass report contains a link to the BlockMark portal. The pass report is available from within the IASME assessment portal, which you can reach through our website at https://www.getcybercertified.co.uk/assesmentlogin.
Logging in to our website: the assessment login page is a password-protected area of our website. If you set up a website account when you purchased your service, log in with those details. If you didn't, you'll need to create an account first. You only have to do this once.
Your assessor will also email you. On successful certification, your assessor will send you a personalised pass email. It includes a copy of your pass report, which contains the link to BlockMark.
You will also receive notification emails directly from IASME, as described in Step 1 below.
What is BlockMark?
BlockMark Registry is a platform run by BlockMark Technologies Ltd. IASME uses it to issue certificates that can be verified. Once you've created an account, all your certificates appear on one dashboard.
From there, you can download your certificate and generate a short piece of code for your certification badge to embed on your website and in your email footer. Anyone can hover over the badge to see who it was issued to, by whom, and the issue and expiry dates. Clicking the badge opens the full digital certificate.
Setting up your BlockMark account
Step 1: Look out for your two notification emails
After you pass, you'll receive two emails from IASME. The first is a notification from the assessment platform, Pervade, confirming that you've passed. The second is from BlockMark, and this is the one you need to get your certificate.
Open the BlockMark email and click the box labelled "OPEN AND SHARE YOUR CERTIFICATE".
You'll be asked whether you already have a BlockMark account. Select YES or NO.
If you don't have an account, you'll be given instructions on how to set one up. Continue to Step 2.
Can't find the email? It's sent to the email address associated with your assessment account. Check your junk, spam and quarantined items folders.
Step 2: Create your user account and connect it to your organisation
Fill in the details to set up your user account.
Press Next.
You'll be asked whether you wish to connect your account to your Organisation Account. You must press "Yes".
⚠️ Important: If you don't press "Yes" at this point, you won't get access to your certificates, and you'll need help from IASME to resolve it.
Step 3: Set up your Organisation Account details
Complete your Organisation Account details.
Check the company name. You can edit it if needed, for example if it doesn't exactly match Companies House. IASME asks that you use the full registered name as shown at Companies House, where applicable. Company names are limited to 150 characters and should avoid non-standard characters.
You can't change the company Number, Type or Country yourself. If any of these need changing, contact IASME or BlockMark Technologies directly.
Step 4: Complete the setup
Select the Setup Organisation button at the bottom of the page.
You'll be taken to your company dashboard.
Step 5: Open your company dashboard
The central button shows your company name. If you're a member of more than one organisation, you'll see more than one button.
Select the button for the organisation you want. This takes you to that company's dashboard.
Why does my account say "limited"? This can happen if you've joined an organisation that has already been set up. The account owner, usually the person who set it up, will receive a notification and needs to accept you.
Understanding your dashboard
Received Certificates shows all certificates issued to your organisation.
Inspected Certificates shows certificates you or your staff have inspected externally, for example as due diligence on customers or suppliers.
Organisation Profile shows your organisation's certificates as they appear externally.
Organisation Accounts lists all users who can access your Organisation Account.
Organisation Settings lets you edit account details, including the company name.
Other buttons such as Issue New Certificates, Issued Certificates and Certificate Insights are only used if you issue certificates from your own schemes.
Downloading your certificate as a PDF
A PDF copy of your certificate is attached to the original BlockMark email. You can also download it from your BlockMark account:
From your organisation dashboard, select Received Certificates. This lists all certificates issued to your company.
If you prefer, switch between Card View and Table View using the icon on the right.
Open the certificate. In Card View, click anywhere on the card. In Table View, click View at the far right of the entry.
The certificate details are shown, including issue and expiry dates, the Assessor and Certification Body, the assessed scope and the certificate number. The available options are to the right of these details.
In the View section at the top, choose Download and Print Certificate to get a PDF copy.
If you need to provide your certificate as evidence but don't want to send the original, choose Download and Print Inspection Copy instead.
Getting your certification badge and logo
The BlockMark badge isn't an image file you copy and paste. It's a piece of code linked to your certificate. If the badge design changes, it updates automatically everywhere it's embedded. When your certificate expires, the badge disappears automatically.
If you want to display the badge on other marketing literature, contact IASME's Marketing Team at marketing@iasme.co.uk for assistance.
Creating your badge code
Open your certificate as described in steps 1 to 3 of the PDF section above.
In the central Share window, choose either Smart badge for website or Smart badge for email.
Use the Controls menu on the left to adjust how the badge looks. The preview updates as you change them.
Select Create at the bottom of the screen to generate your embed code.
The Controls explained:
Dotted outline (preview only): removes the dotted outline from the preview. The outline never appears once embedded.
Non Square Sizing / No padding: removes the invisible padding so the badge takes up less space. Note that this may cause formatting issues if the badge design is updated later.
Background Colour: white, black or transparent.
BM Indicator: sets whether the BM icon is always visible or only appears on hover.
Bottom / Corner / Above: sets where the BM icon appears.
White / Mono versions: where a badge is available in these versions, you'll find them in the Image dropdown.
Adding the badge to your website
You'll need access to the administrator area of your website. If you have a web developer, ask them to do this for you.
Copy the HTML code for your badge.
In your website's content management system (CMS), go to the page where you want the badge and open the HTML viewer.
Paste the HTML into the page's source code.
The badge fills the container it's placed in. Adjust its size by changing the width and height of the iframe.
Hover over the BM logo to check the popup with the certificate details. You may need to adjust the embed size so the popup isn't obscured.
Adding the badge to your email signature
Apple Mac Mail
Open Mail and select Preferences, found under the Mail menu next to the Apple logo in the top left corner.
Select Signatures, then choose the account whose signature you want to edit.
Make sure the Always match my default message font box (bottom right) is unticked.
In the middle box, choose the signature you want to edit.
In the right-hand box, paste the code from the BlockMark email embed tab.
In BlockMark, use the Copy button to copy the code rather than highlighting it and copying manually. In Apple Mail's signature preview, you'll only see a placeholder box where the badge will sit. See Apple's guide: Create and use email signatures in Mail on Mac.
Microsoft Outlook
Create a new signature in Outlook with a name such as "newsig", following Microsoft's instructions for your version of Outlook: Create and add an email signature in Outlook.
This creates a file on your computer at: C:\Users\{YOUR USERNAME}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures
In File Explorer, go to that folder and find the signature file you created.
Right-click it, select Open with, then select Notepad.
Delete all the default text, then paste the HTML email embed code copied from the BlockMark email embed tab.
Save the file. New messages using this signature should now show the badge.
You can then edit the signature with any other text as normal, following Microsoft's instructions: Change an email signature.
Adding colleagues to your account
The person who sets up the Organisation Account is usually its admin. IASME recommends having more than one person with access, in case the original account holder isn't available later.
Go to Organisation Accounts on your dashboard. At first, only one account is listed, starred as Account Owner.
Click Add new user.
Enter the email address of the colleague you want to add and click Invite.
Your colleague receives an email invitation. They click the link and follow the steps.
You can see the status of all invited users, and edit or remove them using the Manage button on the far right.
Changing account ownership: if your IT provider set up the account on your behalf, or a different employee needs to take control, go to Organisation Accounts. Select Manage next to the user you want to transfer ownership to, then press Transfer Ownership.
When you renew
Each renewal is issued with a new certificate number, so it's treated as a new certification. You won't need a new BlockMark account, because the renewed certificate should connect to your existing account if the same organisation type and number are used.
However, embed codes are linked to individual certificates. When your old badge expires, it won't come back automatically after renewal. You'll need to get the embed code from your new certificate and replace the old code on your website and in your email signature.
Need more help?
If your certificate hasn't expired but your badge has disappeared, or you have any other BlockMark queries, contact IASME Customer Services through https://iasme.co.uk/contact-us or on 03300 882 752.
If you're a Get Cyber Certified client, you're also welcome to contact your assessor.
References
IASME, BlockMark Technologies and the IASME digital certifications
Apple Support, Create and use email signatures in Mail on Mac
Microsoft Support, Create and add an email signature in Outlook
Microsoft Support, Change an email signature
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