The rise of cybercrime has become a very popular discussion amongst many security experts and business owners over the last decade. Several organizations have moved their offline businesses to fit into the current online integration, which is why there have been an alarming rate of cybercrime cases. According to a data breach record, 36 billion units of consumer data were made visible to cyber criminals during the pandemic year, and the cost of these breaches rose to over $2 trillion.
The most significant thing to note about data breaches is that, the amount spent to fight against them is often compared to the increase in the attack. The recent estimation of global cyber security costs, that could sum up the year 2022, is said to hit $133.7 Billion. It is better to be prepared for a data breach than to become a victim and also bear the cost. Therefore, you can consider the factors here to help you create a data breach plan for your business.
What Is a Data Breach?
A data breach is an event that happens when sensitive information, without the attention or knowledge of its owner, is harmfully approached or stolen by an unauthorized individual. In a simplified form, if a bad actor uses your password to gain access to your company’s information saved in the cloud, steals your data from your cloud provider, or if your backup hard drive is stolen by an unknown entity, then you have just encountered a data breach.
Data breaches are thought to be significant security threats because many individuals now prefer to store data online. Many organizations, including the federal government, admit and recognize that these threats are in existence, which is why valuable resources have been put in place to ensure data protection. For example, the International Association of Privacy Professionals, (IAPP) and the Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC), are huge resources, used by data security consultants to distribute knowledge about data security.
How to Get Prepared for a Data Breach
1. Be prepared
Services that relate to money used to be the major target for cyber attackers to invade. But, recently, cybercriminals have changed strategy, as they now go after businesses of all types and sizes. So, if you are vulnerable, or not prepared to deal with data breach issues, your online transactions or e-commerce business will be exposed and attacked.
To be prepared means you must be ready with adequate resources before any attack happens. Your objective should also be inclusive of a quick response and alert to all applicable parties in the case of breach discovery. However, this type of response is only feasible with a wide range of predicted planning.
According to a report to study data users, Experian discovered that 90% of individuals whose data has been breached, would forgive organizations that were prepared with a response plan and will quit their business partnership if the response plan was very weak or poor. This means that, having a strong response shows how ready you are.
2. Establish a Plan
For your business to stay off unauthorized breaches, you must be attentive to its data type and know the channels through which an attack may come. Your plan of action when preparing can include investigating and finding solutions to any cyber attacks, how to impart information to an extensive public, and alerting customers or other significant authorities. In every preparation you do, your customers must be the first considered.
3. Set up a Response Team
It is very crucial to put together a data breach response team while preparing for an unpleasant attack, as it helps in dealing with the breach effectively. The response team can include the following:
PR/Communications: A team that deals with data protection solutions, determines alerts, and crucial data security management strategy, traces media coverage, builds conversations with the customer, and ensures an appropriate response.
Customer Care: They normally assist in the development and delivery of notifications and phone scripts, provide a committed message response and call center, as well as call logs and volumes.
C-Suite: This response team is engrossed in setting up plans and carrying out these plans, maintaining conversations with directors, investors, and stakeholders of your company.
The Incident Lead: This response team determines the time of activation of a full response and acts as an intermediate agent among members of the security team.
IT:Ā This team is involved in everything that concerns the risk of security in a business organization. They identify attacks and handle the training of both old employees and new hires. They also work with business partners to point out data breaches and get rid of devices used by the hacker.
It is crucial for businesses to also take note of important external associates including forensics, data breach response experts, legal teams, insurers, top influencers, and cyber security regulators.
4. Practice and Refine Your Plan
After creating your response plan, you can take things further, by conducting departmental training for your staff and ensuring that everyone can practice data protection when faced with the risk of attack. Your team should have wide knowledge about implementing their responsibilities during the preparation and response to a data breach.
Your employees will become more flexible in utilizing data protection solutions, and point out potential weaknesses and spaces in your resources. Expert data security consultants strongly recommend implementing replication drills after every six months, which includes the whole data breach response team, and external partners that control several security events.
5. Act Within The first 24-hours
Making decisions on data breaches within the first 24-hours is an essential key that helps you get back your security, and protect sensitive evidence and customers. So, the moment you identify a breach in your network, launch a plan immediately and gather your team to eliminate all traceable attacks. It is vital to gather and keep intact, all necessary data about the security breach that has been identified, and you must include compliance agencies and legal experts.
Conclusion
While data breaches can affect the success of your business, being prepared for such attacks can also save it. Your employees must not be left out during an action plan against cyberattacks since they are always the most vulnerable in this subject. Creating an incident response plan is also very crucial, as it covers all areas of the security event, especially where there is teamwork.
