'Prevention is best form of defence against fraud'

THE Federation of Small Businesses Merseyside and Cheshire is supporting an appeal from the Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Dan Price, calling on small businesses to build resilience against online fraud.

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The Cheshire PCC has funded a cyber awareness programme, run by the North West Cyber Resilience Centre (NWCRC), to arm small firms with the knowledge and tools to protect themselves.

Mr Price is now running a series of events across the county to highlight the need for small business resilience, with the first - Staying Ahead of the Cyber Predators, at Chester Zoo tomorrow (Friday, May 16).

The appeal follows the Government Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025, which found that phishing is still the most prevalent and disruptive type of breach or attack, reported by 85% of businesses - a slight increase on 2024.

In all, UK businesses experienced 8.58 million cyber-crimes over the past 12 months - up from 7.8 million last year.