No business wants to experience the pain of a cyber attack, but it’s important you know what to do should disaster strike
Cybersecurity is an increasingly important topic for businesses in all industries. As society as a whole continues to rely more and more on technology and connectivity, businesses too are storing more and more information online. And as technology grows larger, so does the risk of falling victim to a cyberattack.
There are plenty of things businesses can do to reduce their risk of a data breach. From improving the strength of your passwords and introducing file encryption services to educating staff members and implementing firewalls, every business owner has a responsibility to put the necessary protection in place.
But sadly, there is nothing which can 100% guarantee that a cyberattack won’t occur at your business, so it’s also important to have a plan in place for what to do when disaster strikes. A Disaster Recovery Plan can help to lessen the consequences of a breach.
The experts at Syntax IT Support London are here to talk us through the key steps to dealing with a data breach in your business.
Contain the breach
Your first port of call should be to stop the breach from getting worse. This means identifying the breach, learning how it happened, and doing whatever is necessary in order to cut off your attacker’s access.
This will likely require preparation beforehand to ensure that your security team has the tools in place to identify and contain the breach. Depending on the nature and scale of the hack, it could be as simple as a change of password, or it might require significant security measures. A security information and event management tool (SIEM) can be invaluable for collection data about attempted intrusions.
Investigate the breach
Once the initial threat is under control, you now need to collect as much information about the breach as possible. This will help you identify the specific method of attack so future attacks using that method will fail. Otherwise, you put yourself at risk of the same thing happening again.
Now is the time to work out the full extent of the problem. Which systems have been impacted, what information has been taken and was this information encrypted? You’ll need to know the answers to all these questions before the next step.
Notify the affected parties
Now that you have a clear understanding of the breach yourself, the time has come to inform any affected parties. The sooner you can do this, the better. Letting customers, clients, employees and partners know of the incident gives them a chance to put their own security measures in place in order to protect their data even more rigorously.
Mass emails, text messages, automated phone calls or even hardcopy mail can all be useful in spreading the word of your data breach. Make sure that, when you inform your customers of the risk they face, you let them know what you plan to do about it in order to show that your business takes such incidents seriously.
Harden your security measures
All right, so now that you’ve got your most recent data breach under control, it’s time to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Invest in increased security measures and pay particular attention to the area of your business through which the hackers managed to get access. Was it due to a lack of employee knowledge, a weak password, a lack of firewall or something else entirely? Seeking the help of an IT support company can give you an overview of your business protection, highlighting any weak areas which put you at greater risk.
