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Cyber security and Cyber Essentials for accountancy practices
Practical, proportionate cyber security for accountancy practices, protecting your clients' sensitive data, stopping email fraud, and getting you Cyber Essentials certified without the jargon.
An accountancy practice is one of the most attractive targets a cyber criminal can find. You hold highly sensitive client financial data, you handle client money and payments, and you're trusted to keep both safe. That combination is exactly what attackers look for, which is why getting your security right matters more for a practice than for almost any other small business.
The good news: you don't need an enterprise security budget or a wall of flashing dashboards. You need a sensible, proportionate set of defences that fit a practice of your size, protect what actually matters, and stay out of your team's way. That's what we set up, and we explain every bit of it in plain English, not jargon.
Not sure where you stand today? Our free Practice IT Health Check reviews your current security posture and flags the real gaps, no obligation, no sales pressure.
The threats that actually hit practices
Forget the hooded-hacker clichés. Here's what genuinely puts an accountancy firm at risk, in plain terms.
Phishing emails
Convincing fake emails, often pretending to be HMRC, a bank, a client or a colleague, designed to trick someone into handing over a password or clicking a bad link.
Invoice fraud & BEC
A spoofed or hijacked email asking you to change a client's bank details or pay a 'new' account. One mistake can mean real money lost, yours or a client's.
Ransomware
Malicious software that locks up your files and demands payment. For a practice mid-January, that's not downtime, it's missed filings and exposed client records.
Weak or missing MFA
If a stolen password is all that stands between a criminal and your email or Microsoft 365, your accounts are one leak away from being taken over.
Staff under pressure
Busy people during a deadline are easier to fool. Most breaches start with a person, not a server, so awareness is a defence in its own right.
Unsupported old systems
Ageing servers and out-of-date software collect known weaknesses that attackers actively scan for and exploit.
Invoice fraud and Business Email Compromise are common enough that we've written about them separately, see how invoice fraud and BEC target accountancy practices for the warning signs and how to stop them.
The defences we put in place
Good security for a practice is layered: no single thing keeps you safe, but a sensible handful working together makes you a far harder target. We set these up, look after them, and make sure they don't slow your team down.
Crucially, we pair the technology with simple habits, because the spoofed email asking to change a bank account is stopped just as much by a quick phone call to verify as by any software.
Strong security and reliable recovery go hand in hand. If ransomware ever does get through, tested backup and disaster recovery is what gets you working again without paying a ransom, so the two belong together.
What's included
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Email security & authentication
SPF, DKIM and DMARC, in plain terms, the settings that prove your emails are really from you and make it much harder for criminals to spoof your domain or impersonate a partner.
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Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
A second check beyond the password on email and Microsoft 365, so a leaked password alone can't open your accounts.
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Endpoint protection
Modern protection on every laptop and PC that catches malware and ransomware before it can spread across the practice.
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Sensible access controls
People can reach the client data they need and no more, and access is removed promptly when someone leaves.
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Staff awareness
Short, jargon-free guidance so your team can spot a phishing or invoice-fraud attempt instead of falling for it.
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Payment-change verification
A clear, simple procedure for confirming any change to bank or payment details, your front line against invoice fraud.
Based in Ruthin, securing practices right across North Wales.
Cyber Essentials, and why it increasingly matters for accountants
Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed certification built around five practical controls every organisation should have in place. For an accountancy practice it's becoming less of a nice-to-have and more of an expectation: cyber insurers often want it, professional bodies such as ICAEW and ACCA increasingly expect demonstrable data security, and, given your duties as an AML-supervised, data-handling firm, it's a credible way to show clients and regulators that you take protection seriously.
We help practices prepare for and achieve certification: we assess you against the controls, fix the gaps in priority order, and guide you through the questionnaire so you pass first time. For the full picture, read our plain-English guide to Cyber Essentials for accountancy practices.
One thing to plan for now: the requirements updated for April 2026 make multi-factor authentication mandatory across cloud services, including Microsoft 365. If you're certifying or renewing, MFA must be switched on properly for every user, something we sort out as a matter of course.
A breach isn't just downtime, it's a reportable event
For most businesses a security incident means a bad day. For a practice it can mean a great deal more. Under UK GDPR, a breach involving personal client data can be a reportable event to the Information Commissioner's Office, often within tight timescales. Layer on your anti-money-laundering (AML) obligations and the duty of confidentiality clients take for granted, and a single incident becomes a compliance, reputational and relationship problem all at once.
That's the real reason to get ahead of this. Sensible security isn't about fear, it's about making sure a moment's bad luck never turns into a letter to every client explaining what happened. Our security work usually sits alongside our managed IT support, so the protections are kept current and watched, not set up once and forgotten.
The simplest next step is a free Practice IT Health Check: an honest, plain-English look at where you're exposed and what's worth fixing first, proportionate to a practice your size, with no obligation to buy anything.
Questions practices ask us
What is Cyber Essentials, and do we really need it?
Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed certification covering five basic, sensible controls every practice should have anyway, things like firewalls, secure settings, access control, malware protection and keeping software updated. It's increasingly expected of accountants: some insurers, professional bodies and clients now ask for it. It also gives clients a simple, credible signal that you take protecting their data seriously.
We're a small practice, isn't proper cyber security overkill for us?
No, and the opposite is the real risk. Criminals often target smaller firms precisely because they assume the defences are weaker, while the data, client financials, payroll, bank details, is just as valuable. The answer isn't enterprise overkill; it's a handful of proportionate, well-chosen measures that fit a practice of your size and don't get in your team's way.
Someone emailed asking us to change a client's bank details. How do we stop fraud like this?
That's classic Business Email Compromise (BEC), and it's one of the most common ways practices lose money. The fix is part technology, part habit: email authentication to make spoofing harder, multi-factor authentication so accounts can't be quietly hijacked, and a simple verification rule, never change payment details on the strength of an email alone, always confirm by phone on a known number. We help you put both the tech and the procedure in place.
What are the April 2026 Cyber Essentials changes?
The updated requirements make multi-factor authentication mandatory across cloud services, including Microsoft 365, which most practices rely on for email and documents. If you're certifying or renewing, MFA needs to be switched on properly for every user. We make that change painless and check the rest of your setup still meets the standard at the same time.
Can you help us actually get certified, not just talk about it?
Yes. We start with a Health Check to see where you stand against the controls, fix the gaps in plain English and priority order, and prepare you for the certification questionnaire so you pass first time. It's a guided process, not a pile of paperwork left on your desk.
Related services
- Managed IT support Day-to-day helpdesk and proactive care, on one predictable per-user price, so your practice just works.
- Backup & disaster recovery Reliable, tested backups and a recovery plan, so a failure never costs you client records or January.
- Cloud migration Move off ageing servers to Microsoft 365 and the cloud, safely, with secure remote and hybrid working.
See where your practice's IT really stands
Book a free, no-obligation Practice IT Health Check, a plain-English, 15 to 20 minute review of your backups, security, compliance gaps and cloud-readiness. No jargon, no hard sell.