Cybersecurity is no longer just a worry to be dealt with by the IT department: with each passing year, it is taken more seriously at board level by companies around the world. In Britain, companies are taking notice of the enormous fines imposed for data leaks in the wake of the EU’s GDPR policy, says Ian Glover, president of cybersecurity certification organisation CREST.

Mr Glover says: “For chief information security officers [CISOs] and their boards, the stakes have got higher with the Information Commissioner’s Office flexing its muscles with some hefty GDPR fines.”

Companies are increasingly realising the importance of training, says Prof Curran: “Education is crucial – but it often takes people to make a mistake before they learn. There is a new movement where security teams send phishing emails containing fake malware to their employees, which when activated lead them to a site telling them about their mistake and educating them on the dangers of what they did.”

How well prepared companies are tends to vary by sector, Mr Tanner says. Cybercriminals tend to “follow the money”, with finance the most-attacked sector in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), according to research by NTT Security, accounting for 30pc of all attacks. “The financial services sector, perhaps inevitably, has faced a long history of cyberattacks,” he says. “But it is equally one of the most prepared. Less so are the retail and healthcare sectors, as the recent series of hacks involving Target, Home Depot and the NHS remind us.

“Apart from sector vulnerabilities, there are key geographical differences to consider. The UK, frustratingly, continues to fall behind the curve when compared with the US. Across the Pond, business leaders have been taking the perceived cyberthreat more seriously for longer than we have in the UK.”

Businesses should keep an eye on their suppliers as well. Research by tax and consulting firm RSM this summer suggested that up to a fifth of cyber-incidents in the financial sector are caused by third-party failure, such as when suppliers fall victim and hackers use their systems as a bridge to access bigger targets.

“Cybercriminals are invariably after one thing – data,” says Ross Brewer, vice-president and managing director EMEA at LogRhythm. “The richest and most lucrative stores of data are found in the largest organisations. From third-party suppliers to white-label clients, each connection with another business is a potential point of weakness, and it’s something cybercriminals are more than willing to exploit.

“There’s no panacea for ensuring yours, and the networks of your suppliers, remain secure indefinitely. It’s a matter of continuous diligence and a meticulous process.”

The human factor remains the single most important part of fighting cybercrime, says Edward Whittingham, a former police officer and managing director of The Defence Works. “For too long there has been a focus on technology to stop cybercrime, but with over 90pc of incidents occurring due to human behaviour, training is absolutely crucial,” he says.

“Harvard Business Review recently described security awareness training as ‘the best cybersecurity investment a business can make’. Crucially, however, organisations need to not treat this as a tick-box exercise. It shouldn’t be seen as something to force upon employees but, instead, organisations need to set about building a security and data-aware culture through the business.”