Cyber Security Awareness Month 🔐 What the opposition parties are promising you 🗳️

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It's still Amanda filling in for Liz this week. October is Cyber Security Awareness Month, so let’s start with a hard truth: when hackers come for your business, your people are the target.

Phishing is by far the biggest form of cyber attack on businesses today, and ransomware has already brought household names like the Co-op and M&S to their knees. The good news is that some of the best defences, like two-factor authentication, are simple.

Cyber security veteran Tinesh Chhaya knows the feeling. Fraudsters impersonated him by email to push through a £17,000 payment, and only his outsourced finance person’s eagle eye stopped it. And his advice is refreshingly plain: it’s really all the basics.

With the Budget just two weeks away, the opposition parties are in full pitch mode.

We’ve been through every conference speech and policy paper to see what Reform UK, the Lib Dems, the Greens and the Conservatives would do for small firms. Two would let you earn £15,000 before paying income tax, and everyone wants to cut the cost of employing staff.

None of it is law, but it will shape the debate. Our test for each pledge is simple: does it save a business with fewer than 10 staff time or money?

Back in the real world, Jayne from Be Social Marketing Consultancy always assumed public sector tenders were for much bigger businesses.

Then she learnt that large contracts are split into smaller lots, and within months she’d won two on her first tender. Her message to fellow sole traders: tenders are for small businesses too.

And finally, a question for anyone who says: “The business is my pension.”

Roughly 20% of the self-employed pay into one, compared with 78% of employees, and selling up is a plan that hands a lot of power to a buyer and a market you can’t control. Worth a read before you put all your eggs in one basket.

What the opposition parties are promising small businesses

How Be Social Consultancy used Supply Connect to win its first tender contract

Cyber security in 2026: What your business should be thinking about

Why your business isn’t a pension

What small businesses can learn from real-world cyberattacks

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