How do you prepare specifically for a cyber attack?

[ShiftingSands21]

I imagine having cash would be a start. What else?

Insurance documents.
Bank account details.
Birth/marriage/death certificates.
Any share certificates
Tax records.
Bills/ council tax details.

If you get a camping stove make sure you have plenty of gas. One container for a long term won't cut it

Ensure you have updated your systems to the latest operating system and security patches, back up any vital documents and store offline.

What is cash other than a bit of paper with an empty promise if currency is effected.

It might work for a short time but in the longer term will be worthless, resources will become currency such as food, equipment, weapons and even items made of precious metals, so having some silver jewellery, a jerry can of petrol, a spare packet of tomato seeds or a shovel would be priceless.

Regarding cash, I would advise having some $US as well as £UK and a few Euros.

I am going to make sure I have paper copies of important documents and details of online bank accounts written down. If things worsen significantly I will take and print screen shots of bank accounts every week.
Bottles water as water supply network could be hit by a cyber attack. Only 10 litres for drinking/cooking/teeth brushing. Would have to use other water for washing.
Always have a good stock cupboard and have been well stocked with medicines since before brexit.
Always have about£300 in cash.
Have power packs always charged.
I’m now filling car up when it gets half empty rather than filling it half full when it’s empty.
Already have a camping gas stove.
I am thinking of a solar power pack for charging iPad etc at least the kids will be kept happy with what’s already downloaded

All the regulators require banks to be prepared for this and many countries have included legislation. Major banks have entire data centres where the only purpose is to copy records onto magnetic tape, or print and file to multiple back up media.

The best way you can mitigate for a cyber attack is to use and have smaller balances in multiple larger banks rather than smaller ones & only take your custom to those for whom cybersecurity is a priority so if there is pain in the short term it can be offset.

I have just updated my automatic deliveries, esp on Prime. Anything that relies on manual adjustment or deletion each month has been removed, in case there is an outage and I cannot change my deliveries online. So changed Prime to the minimum essentials that I want. The same would count for any other automated subscriptions I suppose.

The best way you can mitigate for a cyber attack is to use and have smaller balances in multiple larger banks rather than smaller ones & only take your custom to those for whom cybersecurity is a priority so if there is pain in the short term it can be offset.

This. People seem to be thinking that if there is a cyber attack on the banks then money is gone for good. It’s more likely to be a fairly short term difficulty that is sorted out within a few days/weeks but in the meantime you need a fallback plan yo see you through.

HSBC is Chinese so unlikely to be affected.

@SpinningTheSeedsOfLove

Regarding cash, I would advise having some $US as well as £UK and a few Euros.

Why? (genuine question)

Assuming in UK and likely to avoid travel if there's a rocky patch?

There seems to be some confusion about the scope of "cyber attack".

The whole of UKs technology infrastructure is highly unlikely to be completely obliterated by what's going on in Ukraine, is the first thing to remember.

Financial institutions and telecoms companies for instance will have business continuity plans in place, many if not all will have ISO 27001 certification so are already thinking seriously about their information security. They have fail-over servers that act as back ups to main servers, etc etc. So even if you lose your mobile phone access for a while, their computer systems are like Fort Knox so they aren't going to lose all your records in that way.

I think people are being panicked by threads like this into thinking the world is coming to an end. It's important to keep a bit of perspective on this. Ukraine is currently in a war zone and even they still have widespread connectivity. Elon Musk has confirmed he's just relocated some satellites over Ukraine to preserve their connectivity.

mobile phone access + internet access

For me the biggest risk is that the attack is on our electricity network. There is a good contingency plan for this but the residual risk is that some people would be without power for 7 days (if you've seen Cobra on sky it's that kind of event) so I basically prep for 7 days in our house without power. Hence water, medication (and food) being a priority.