The West Midlands is home to a huge range of businesses: manufacturers and engineering firms, logistics and distribution hubs at the centre of the UK’s road network, and a thriving professional and financial services sector in Birmingham itself. Whatever the sector, the cyber threats are much the same, and so are the first steps to defend against them.
The threats local businesses face most
- Phishing and business email compromise, often aimed at finance teams and invoices
- Ransomware that stops production, deliveries or trading
- Attacks that arrive through suppliers and service providers
- Stolen passwords used to access email and cloud services
Where to start
- Turn on multi-factor authentication for email and every cloud service.
- Keep software and devices up to date, and replace anything unsupported.
- Make sure you have offline backups, and test that you can restore them.
- Train your staff to recognise and report suspicious emails.
- Work towards Cyber Essentials, which gives you a clear checklist of the basics.
- Write down what you’d do in an incident, including who to call.
Local help and support
You’re not on your own. The National Cyber Security Centre publishes free guidance for organisations of every size, and the West Midlands Cyber Resilience Centre supports local businesses with advice and resources. If you’re the victim of cyber crime, you can report it to Action Fraud.
The region’s tech community is active too. Birmingham Tech Week brings together businesses, specialists and public bodies each year, and CyberQ hosted sessions and The Cyber Social at the 2026 event.
Why a local partner helps
A local partner can sit round the table with your leadership team, run workshops on site and get to know how your business works. CyberQ Group is headquartered in Alpha Tower in Birmingham city centre and has supported organisations from here since 2016, while serving clients across five regions.
Explore our cyber security services in Birmingham, our CREST-accredited penetration testing, or take AskQ’s free Cyber Health Check to see where you stand.
Questions to ask a cyber security provider
Whether you choose a local partner or not, it’s worth asking:
- Which accreditations do you hold, such as CREST and ISO 27001?
- Can you show experience in our sector?
- Who would we work with day to day?
- How do you support us if we’re attacked out of hours?
- How will you report progress to our leadership team?
The answers will tell you a lot about whether a provider can support you as you grow.
Talk to a local expert
Book a call with our Birmingham team, or call us on 0800 0614 715.
