The internet can feel like a minefield for companies and if you run a company, there’s a good chance you face a data breach someday. If your company stores sensitive user data of your customers, they could be severely affected by targeted data breaches. If that happens, you will need to act quickly to avoid a full-blown disaster. In this blog, we have covered 6 essential steps you should take right away to recover from a data breach.
How Does Data Breach Happen?
A data breach happens when sensitive information is illegally accessed and stolen by someone unauthorized. It could be from a person or even a company. Cybercriminals get their hands on this data either by finding a loophole in your system or exploiting a simple human error that your employees might have inadvertently made. Personal data are often a lucrative catch for committing fraud, the most common being financial fraud. To protect data, you will likely need teams ready who are well-trained by corporate cybersecurity programs.
Data breaches usually happen due to 3 main causes:
- Data leaks: These occur when sensitive info is accidentally leaked from within a company. This might be caused by unintentional mistakes by someone working at the company but commonly happens by giving access to outsiders or unauthorized people, or improper storing of data.
- Targeted cyberattacks: This happens when cybercriminals come to know of a loophole in your security and exploit it. It could be as simple as a minor software bug that looked harmless. Their main aim is to steal data. This is a direct attempt to break into systems and swipe high-value data.
- Malicious insider threats: But sometimes the wolf can also be in sheep’s clothing. This means the data leak happens with help from an insider employee. Employees, contractors, or even partners might intentionally help steal sensitive data for harmful reasons.
How To Recover From a Data Breach
If you get a notification saying sensitive data was exposed in a breach at your company, you need to act fast to minimize the damage. The bigger the damage, the larger the ink on your reputation will be. Public trust can stoop to an extreme low if the news gets out. The first step is to figure out what information was compromised. Once you know what’s at risk, you can take the right steps to minimize damage.
According to IBM, data breaches cost a staggering $3.86M on average. Much of that cost is owed to the time delay in acting quickly. Timing is everything in these situations. Here are the steps to recover from a data breach:
Confirming the Breach
The first step to recovering from a data breach is confirming if a breach actually happened. According to a SOC survey, up to 50% of breach reports turn out to be false positives. This means no breach occurred at all! It’s never a good time to chase false alarms to waste time and security budget. That is why it is essential to have your team verify if a breach actually took place.
Gather Your Team
Gather your A-grade security team to handle the breach to keep all your recovery efforts organized in one place. Usually, companies use an incident response plan for data breaches. If you already have one with defined roles for each person, it will help you respond more quickly. Hence, it is a wise move to keep this handy.
Isolate Affected Accounts & Machines
If a virus has affected one of your machines, immediately disconnect it from the network. You will also need to find accounts that were hit. Temporarily disable all those accounts or limit their permissions. If your network was hit, you may also need to isolate the segment of that network. You will need a team well-trained in recovering from a data breach for this step. They can figure out how the attack happened and how extensive damage was caused.
All this should happen in the shortest time possible so that your business is not hit. You must also have a business continuity plan in place. This will help you swiftly begin normal operations once you have recovered from the breach.
Eradicate the Threat
You will have to thoroughly scrutinize any software or loopholes that hackers exploit. Scan through all the systems that were hit. You might find malware or trojans. If something suspicious is found, immediately remove or quarantine it. It is not wise to skip this step as you might be leaving trails in your systems to be hacked again in the future.
Restoring Systems and Data
To resume normal operations, you will have to restore your systems to a clean state. If you have done regular backups, this task becomes easy. If the backups are secure and updated, doing this should be fairly smooth. However, make sure to clear your systems first. There is no point in restoring data if there is still hidden malware somewhere.
Strengthen Security
A breach is a clear sign that it is time to boost your security. Once your systems are back up, you should focus on tightening your defenses. There are a lot of steps you might need to perform depending on which areas you are lacking. You can identify these through audits. One of the most common steps that companies usually have to perform is retraining their employees.
Because breaches most often take place due to human errors, you might need to invest in robust corporate training for cybersecurity. Such training will teach them about phishing scams, updating software, the importance of multi-factor authentication, firewalls, and more. Choosing an experienced corporate training provider like EducationNest will mean your team is well-equipped to prevent another breach.
Notify Any Relevant Parties
Depending on the sensitive information leaked, you might also need to notify people about the data breach. In some regions, it is also mandatory to inform lawmakers about any data breach, depending on the size of the attack.
Conclusion
Being proactive is the best defense. Regular updates, constant vigilance, and learning from past incidents can make all the difference. Your company needs to keep evolving its security practices to ensure your business remains protected in the long run. It is also important to invest in robust employee training programs to safeguard your data from intruders.
EducationNest is one such cybersecurity corporate training provider providing lifetime-access courses led by industry experts to keep your team up-to-date with all the cybersecurity trends.
