Cybersecurity for tradies

What cybersecurity does a tradie actually need? Three things cover most of it: a locked phone with multi-factor sign-in on your email, a rule that you ring before paying any changed bank details, and a backup of your quotes and invoices that lives somewhere other than the ute. The first two cost nothing and take about twenty minutes.

Your business runs on your phone: quotes from the driveway, invoices from the car park, supplier bills paid between jobs. That is where the scams aim.

The two things that cost tradies money

Fake bank details. An email from your timber yard or wholesaler, same logo, saying they've changed banks. Or a customer told by "you" to pay a new account. False billing was the scam Australian small businesses reported most to Scamwatch in 2025, according to the National Anti-Scam Centre, with $2.0 million in reported losses.

Losing the ute's contents. A phone or laptop gone means more than the device. It can mean your quotes, photos of finished work, and the invoices you haven't been paid for yet.

A Friday, as it might go

You knock off at a job in the next suburb, come back to the ute, and the window's smashed. Laptop gone from under the seat, and your spare phone with it. Neither had a passcode. Your email was signed in on both. By Monday you're ringing every customer with an open invoice to tell them not to pay any "new" account, and trying to rebuild three weeks of quotes from memory.

Do this today, member or not

  1. Put a passcode on every phone and laptop. A stolen device that opens straight to your email is the expensive kind of stolen.
  2. Turn on multi-factor sign-in for your email. Signing in then needs a code from your phone as well as your password, so a thief with your password still can't get in. Then do your banking and invoicing app. About ten minutes each; the government's guide walks you through it.
  3. Make "ring them first, then pay" your rule. When a supplier's bank details change, ring them on a number you already have before you pay. Put a line on your own invoices too: "Our bank details will never change by email."
  4. Turn on your phone's find and erase feature, so a lost phone can be located or wiped.
  5. Back up your quotes and invoices somewhere that isn't the ute, and check you can bring one back.

The same Friday, as a member

The phone has a passcode and your email needs a code from your phone, so the thief gets the hardware, not your business. You send us a message from your phone to say the laptop's gone. Once you've got a replacement, we restore your quotes and files to it, usually within a few hours, instead of you rebuilding three weeks from memory.

WISECLICK Cyber Core is $59 a month, about $2 a day, and covers one computer and one phone. Extra phones are $9 a month.

  • A second opinion before you pay. Forward the supplier email or invoice that looks off, straight from your phone. A person checks it and replies the same business day.
  • Your laptop and phone, protected and watched. Security software runs on both, and every alert comes to our team as it happens, so it isn't swiped away while you're up a ladder. We sort out what happened, at no extra cost.
  • Your files backed up every day. Each copy is locked so nobody can delete or change it, not even someone with your password. Every new backup renews the lock on everything still on your computer, and anything you delete can be brought back for sixty days. Laptop stolen from the ute? We restore your work for you, usually within a few hours.
  • One line every morning. The app tells you whether anything needs you. Most mornings, nothing does.

AUD, GST included. Cancel any time.

Join Cyber Core, $59 a month

Or start with your Cyber Report Card

Questions tradies ask

I do everything on my phone. Is the phone covered?

Yes. Cyber Core covers one phone as well as one computer, and you can add more phones for $9 a month each.

I've got an apprentice and a part-timer. Which plan?

Cyber Plus covers three computers for $149 a month, and Cyber Max covers five for $239.

How do I know if a supplier email is real?

Ring the supplier on a number you already have, not one in the email. Members can also forward it to us and a person will check it.

Who's behind it

WISECLICK (wise.click) is a cybersecurity membership for Australian businesses of one to five people. WISECLICK Pty Ltd is a Sydney company at 56 Pitt Street, built by people who have run IT for Australian businesses since 2004.

Sources

Last reviewed 29 October 2026. The Friday break-in is an illustration, not a member's case.

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