A GROWING Chester IT company is helping more local businesses to stay safe as more than half of British businesses are targeted by hackers.

Each year, authorities throughout Europe aim to raise awareness of cybersecurity threats during European Cybersecurity Month – and it serves as a valuable reminder for organisations to assess their own digital safety net – particularly SMEs.

This year, over 55 per cent of businesses have been targeted with cybercrime, a 15 per cent increase on last year, meaning there has never been a better time to review the security of your company’s data.

Help is at hand from Cirrus Technology Solutions, an expanding IT services business based in the heart of Chester, which offers IT products and services for SMEs across Cheshire, North Wales and the North West.

The growing company, which celebrates its five-year anniversary this month, has just moved into new bigger offices in Riverside Enterprise Centre and now offers support to more than 40 customers including the hospitality sector, law, accountancy and retail.

Managing director Anito Lauriello says there are a number of ways Cirrus can help firms to prevent online attacks, from educating employees to backing up data regularly.

He said: “Every time a user connects to the internet, your business is potentially exposed to risk.

“This risk may even be from a legitimate source that has been compromised. The recent LinkedIN attack is a current example that facilitated the spread of malicious content to trusted users.

“Importantly these threats are increasingly internal and not just from external sites.

“We offer advice, procedures and as needed the technology to secure your business with a 360° view: companies really need to educate their employees about the threats and how they spread.

“Most incidents can be prevented through good practice and understanding of the issues and a greater degree of caution online.

“We’ve recently doubled our office space and boosted the technical and operations team.

“I started Cirrus with an ambitious growth strategy which is being realised. We are so proud of what we have achieved in the past five years but this is just the beginning.”

“Our clients range from £30m businesses to organisations with five people.”