For his part Noble ensured all enquiries will be discreet but he also said publicity is no longer such a bad thing.
"It sends out a strong message," said Noble. "Pursuing prosecutions shows an organisation will not stand for criminal activity."
Noble also urged companies to find out who their regional high tech crime officer is. During downtime these individuals will be happy to come in and meet companies, to look at their operations and spend time getting to know them.
"Like a fire brigade coming in to have a look around a factory so they know what they are dealing with in the event of a fire, we can come in and have a look around in case the company becomes the victim of a cybercrime."
And targeted attacks are likely to increase. Companies certainly can no longer assume it won't happen to them and must start to understand their level of risk and plan for the worst case scenario - from ensuring technical measures can be put in place to ensuring staff are trained and able to man the recovery effort.
Simon Perry, vice president security strategy at CA, said: "We will increasingly see targeted attacks, from the usual suspects such as disgruntled employees but also from those with a financial motivation."
Among the most common targets of cybercrime last year were online bookmakers who became the victims of extortionists threatening them with distributed denial of services attacks if ransom fees weren't paid. The majority of bookmakers were targeted in this way, with the approach seemingly based more on what they do than any specific knowledge of their systems.
The gangs committing these attacks appear largely to have been based in Eastern Europe and they generally threatened to bring down the companies' Web sites the day before major sporting events such as the Grand National or the FA Cup Final.
It's believed some took the 'brush it under the carpet approach' and paid up, effectively inviting the blackmailers, or others with same M.O. to return another day, but the majority of companies were open about the threats and reported them to the police, ensuring investigations could commence and arrests could be made.
Rorie Devine, director of infrastructure at Betfair, told silicon.com: "Within the online gambling industry, liaison and information sharing with both the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit and commercial rivals has proved very effective in helping mitigate these attacks."
If Langford was right and these things do always have a way of making it into the public domain, it's better a company is seen as proactively combating the issue and handling it confidently at the time than being outed down the line as a company who tried and failed to brush it under the carpet.
The cost of repairing a server or a system is pocket-change compared with the cost of repairing a reputation.
Langford warns: "If you don't handle your reputation in a crisis that will prove to be the most costly thing to put right."
Silicon.com's Will Sturgeon reported from London. For more coverage on silicon.com, click here.
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