Handling a Data Breach: A Beginner’s Guide

A data breach can cause countless problems for just about any business, including exposed customer details, company secrets, or financial information. Most businesses will signal a red alert the moment a breach is brought to light, but a prepared business will fare much better than an unprepared one. Today, we want to explore data breaches and how your organization can overcome them (or minimize the threat of them).

Size Doesn’t Matter

It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business or a large enterprise; a security breach will harm your business all the same.

Data breaches involve exposed data, whether it’s the result of an intentional cyberattack or an unlocked laptop in a public place. For businesses that experience a data breach, the exposed data is only the beginning of the trouble; they’ll also likely face lost trust and reputation, regulatory fines, legal issues, and recovery costs. Large businesses and small companies alike are vulnerable to the threats posed by data breaches, and your organization needs to be prepared to protect itself through proactive measures.

Here’s how you navigate a data breach, although we hope you never have to use this guide.

Your Data Breach Response Protocols

Step One: Containment

When you think a breach has occurred, put all affected devices in quarantine. Take them off the network to prevent the infection from spreading. Sometimes businesses won’t detect a breach for weeks or months, and by then, the damage has increased considerably.

Step Two: Assessment

Once you believe the breach is contained, it’s time to determine what happened so you can address the root cause. It’s also good to know what data was exposed, as your path forward will depend on it. Certain types of data, such as trade secrets, payment information, and personally identifiable information, require a specific approach.

Step Three: Eradication

It's time for the cleanup crew to make their way through your systems to eliminate all malware and plug any security holes. Depending on how long the breach has been active, there may be multiple entry points available for the attacker.

Step Four: Recovery

Once the systems have been cleared, you can proceed with recovering and restoring data to its proper working order. Use your backups to restore operations to a point before the breach, ensuring a smooth resumption of services. Naturally, you need a backup strategy in place to pull this off, and we can help with that too, as needed.

Step Five: Notification

Everyone impacted by the data breach has the right to know what happened, from clients and customers to your employees. You may also need to report to the authorities and regulatory agencies. This will hurt your reputation, but addressing the issue in a professional and transparent manner will help your case as you navigate the fallout of the incident.

Step Six: Review

Once you’ve gotten through the crisis, it’s time to look at what you need to do to prevent issues like this from arising in the future. Walk through the incident and reflect on the process to see if there are recurring issues or problems that need correction; chances are there will be at least a few for you to resolve.

We recommend you implement security updates, staff training, and changes to your response plan in accordance with what you discover through this reflective process.

Take This Seriously

In any case, you want to take data breaches seriously; goodness knows your customers, law enforcement organizations, and regulatory agencies will. To get started protecting your business from future data breaches, call us today at (336) 900-0030.