Business Services

All businesses need protection against cyber-attack. Business services firms handle confidential strategic information, employee records, salary data, creative campaigns, client branding assets, and competitive intelligence every day. Client strategies, HR data, recruitment databases, creative work, and marketing plans are prime targets for cyber criminals and competitors.

CyberSolver was created to provide simple low-cost solutions for business services SMEs to protect their business and clients. Our six tailored solutions are designed to get businesses focused on what really matters. What do we offer specifically for SMEs in the business services sector?

The Growing Threat to Business Services

Business services firms are increasingly reliant on digital platforms, cloud-based collaboration tools, client portals, creative software platforms, CRM systems, and remote access for consultants and creatives working across multiple client accounts. These systems introduce new risks:

Theft of confidential strategic and creative information - attackers steal business plans, restructuring proposals, creative campaigns, brand strategies, and competitive intelligence before public launch.
HR and recruitment data breaches - employee records, salary information, candidate databases, and client hiring plans are targeted for identity theft and competitive advantage.
Phishing and social engineering - staff are targeted with urgent requests related to client campaigns, proposals, deadlines, and approvals.
Multi-client access complexity - staff working across multiple client accounts and systems create complex access management challenges and increase attack surface.
Staff and contractors - accidental and in some cases malicious activity can result in serious breaches of client confidentiality or premature disclosure of campaigns.

Attackers know that business services firms hold valuable strategic and creative information about multiple organisations and that staff often have privileged access to client systems and social media accounts. They exploit trust relationships and urgent campaign deadlines to steal data, deploy ransomware, hijack social media accounts, or gain access to client organisations through the agency. Even a single breach can lead to loss of client trust, reputational damage, contractual disputes, and competitive disadvantage. While this may sound alarming, these types of attacks can be largely prevented through focused security controls.

Digging deeper into the problem for business services

Business services firms access confidential strategic information, creative campaigns, employee records, candidate data, and social media credentials across multiple client organisations simultaneously. Clients increasingly require agencies and consultancies to demonstrate compliance with ISO 27001 or Cyber Essentials as contractual requirements. Business services firms are increasingly targeted by attackers using:

Compromised staff credentials to gain access to multiple client systems, social media accounts, and advertising platforms.
Weak passwords and lack of MFA on collaboration platforms, client portals, and shared social media accounts.
Poorly secured file sharing of confidential reports, creative campaigns, HR data, and marketing strategies.
Social media account hijacking where attackers gain control of client social accounts to post malicious content or scams.
Lack of segregation between different client data, campaigns, and projects.
Supply chain attacks targeting the multiple platforms agencies use (design tools, stock libraries, analytics platforms, social media management tools).
Lack of staff training especially among junior staff, freelancers, and contractors working across multiple client contexts.

For recruitment firms specifically, candidate databases containing personal contact information, CV data, salary expectations, and employment histories are particularly valuable to attackers. For advertising and marketing agencies, premature disclosure of campaigns can undermine client competitive advantage and result in significant financial losses.

Professional indemnity insurers increasingly scrutinise cybersecurity controls, and firms face reputational damage when client data or campaigns are breached. The competitive nature of the sector means protecting proprietary methodologies, creative work, and client confidences is critical to business success.

What can you do?

Start with low-cost, high-impact actions

As a minimum, consider the following:

Train your staff - especially those working across multiple client accounts, handling HR data, managing social media accounts, and sharing confidential campaigns or reports.
Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) - on email, client portals, collaboration platforms, social media accounts, advertising platforms, and cloud storage.
Review file and data segregation - ensure there's clear separation between different client projects and campaigns, and that access is controlled.
Client system and social media access - implement secure methods for accessing client systems and social accounts, use password managers for shared credentials, and ensure staff use separate credentials for each client where possible.

If you're working on large campaigns or managing multiple client engagements, you should:

Harden your collaboration and file sharing - to prevent unauthorised access to client data, creative campaigns, and strategic information.
Create an incident response plan - include steps for business continuity, client notification, social media account recovery, and contractual reporting obligations.
Restrict access - review processes and access controls to ensure staff only access the client data, campaigns, and accounts they need.

If you've got the basics covered and want to go further, run a full risk assessment covering your systems, staff, suppliers, freelancers, and client access arrangements and implement simple processes to track cyber maturity and demonstrate compliance with client security requirements.

CyberSolver's six solutions — which one is right for you?

While generalised recommendations are helpful, there's no substitute for focusing on your business, your priorities, and your specific risks. CyberSolver helps you take practical, affordable steps to protect your operations. Whether you're just starting or ready to invest, we offer six packaged solutions geared up to business services SMEs:

Use Risk Reduction when you don't know where to start. We'll identify your greatest risks and give you a prioritised, pragmatic plan of action.
Use Compliance when you need to meet GDPR, ICO expectations, ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, or client security requirements.
Use Staff Awareness to reduce human risk with training tailored to consultants, HR professionals, recruiters, marketing teams, creatives, and support staff.
Use Resilience to build your breach response capability and strengthen technical defences.
Use vCISO for low-cost executive and board-level strategy, prioritisation, and reporting.
Use the CyberSolver Toolkit for templates, playbooks, and repeatable operational artefacts.