Of course, one of the first actions in the event of any criminal activity should be to inform the police.
Going into your local police station may draw little more than faux-concern and blank faces but fortunately the police do now have dedicated resources for handling such enquiries. But be warned, these resources are critically over-stretched and under-staffed.
The FBI's Gibson warned that nobody benefits in the long run from a conspiracy of silence.
"The CEO may be saying 'we don't want this to go public, we don't want to report this hack, I'll just let it go' but the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit has a confidentiality charter and it really does work," he said, which is reassuring news for any company which believes a call to the police is tantamount to putting a call in to the newsdesk of the BBC.
DC Tony Noble from Surrey Police Computer Crime Unit said: "Any company's priority is to get their company up and running again profitably but often it's only once that's been done that their heads turn to the issue of 'whodunnit?'."
Noble said failure to report incidents in a timely fashion is often a major problem in chasing conviction. "At the end of the day vital evidence will already have been lost," he said.
"Evidence, evidence, evidence," is the priority said Noble. "What occurred at the time of the incident, what happened, what it looked like to the victims and what it cost. You have to save all this evidence."
Companies must start working on the case they will present to the police immediately and should provide some basic details which will aid the investigation and may even help secure a conviction.
Noble said companies should provide a written outline of what has gone on. They can prepare this by committee but must tell the police who put it together and who contributed what information. This outline may constitute part of the plaintiff's written statement and important evidence could be omitted if the details of who provided what is undermined at any time.
Companies should also provide a list of all staff involved and include details of who discovered the problem. The more detail the better.
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