Global cybercrime trends mean annual damages will hit $10.5 trillion by 2025, representing $11.4 million in of damages incurred per minute and $16.4 billion per day. Not only is cybercrime one of the fastest growing markets on the planet, but according to Cybercrime Magazine it also represents the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.

Successful cyber attacks often start by targeting company employees via social engineering, the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions, including divulging confidential information or granting access to critical infrastructure. Social engineering is the primary way cyber criminals gain access to sensitive data, infrastructure and money.

Adam Anderson is co-founder of Hook Security, providing cyber security awareness training, and managing general partner of Ansuz Capital, a cybersecurity venture fund. With his twenty years of experience in the field of cyber security, Anderson has pioneered and created a new field of study inside security, psychological security (PsySec), to combat the epidemic of social engineering.

From an interview with Anderson, here are seven things business owners can do to prevent and survive a cyberattack.

Take regular backups

Taking backups of your critical data is, well, critical. It mitigates risk should you be the target of a ransomware attack, reducing the impact by enabling you to reliably retrieve your data. Ransomware is a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid. Ransomware is serious business; Garmin was reported to have paid a $10million ransom when its systems were hacked in 2020.

Anderson recommends you “use cloud-based tools such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Box, instead of storing files only on your computer. Configure them to back up your important information automatically. “Whilst it is true that online companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple get hacked, they are still many times better at security than you are,” he added. With cloud-based programmes, if the worst should happen, you can “simply rebuild the computer,…