You can save your business and brand reputation by preparing for the worst-case scenario in the event of a cyberattack.
A data breach can destroy your brand’s reputation. Your best and often the only course of action is to recover as soon as possible.
Through a well thought out and strategic plan, you can bounce your company back after a minor and major data breach by protecting your data hubs better and rebuilding what you’ve lost.
A Look at Data Disasters
In 2018, successful cyberattacks cost enterprises an average of nearly $4 million, according to the IBM 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study. Data breaches are a serious threat to your organization. Resultantly, you must take precautions to prevent the compromise of your company’s data. By preparing ahead of time, you can recover from the devastating fallout of a data breach as quickly as possible.
Hackers can compromise your network in several ways. Popular attack vectors for cyberattacks are:
· Distributed denial-of-service (DDOS)
· Phishing
· Ransomware
· Spyware
· Viruses
During these attacks, malicious actors typically make off with your customers‘ names, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers. If you operate in the healthcare vertical, hackers may also steal your patients’ medical records.
The most severe data breaches have affected many consumer accounts that range in number anywhere from millions to billions of incidents. As an example, malicious actors leveraged a spear-phishing attack via email during the 2014 Yahoo! cyberbreach.
Hackers successfully compromised 3 billion Yahoo! accounts, walking off with the names, birth dates and security credentials of users. The Yahoo! breach remained confidential for three years, and the company continued to investigate the incident for a year afterward.
In the end, the company reset the passwords of its users’ and encrypted their security questions. In addition to the losses incurred to recover from the attack, the breach tainted a deal between Yahoo! and Verizon, devaluing the company by $350 million.
What Do I Do If My Company Experiences a Data Breach?
If your network is compromised, you must immediately repair any vulnerabilities created by the breach. Only one thing’s worse than a network breach “ multiple network breaches. Ideally, you already have a mobile response team in place.
You must notify the team right away to prevent additional losses. How your team responds depends on the structure of your organization. You should also be prepared to hire a forensic investigator to determine the full scope of the breach.
Also, you should establish a relationship with a forensic cybersecurity investigator and legal counsel. If a cyberbreach occurs, you’ll want these professionals on speed dial.
After the attack, you need to quarantine all affected hardware. Disconnect any affected hardware from the internet, but don’t turn them off. This procedure is for the benefit of your forensic investigators. Meanwhile, keep an eye on any part of your network that is vulnerable to attack “ especially the ones that hackers already used to compromise your system.
If the malicious actors got away with users’ credentials, your system is at risk until you reset all account passwords. Have your IT department deploy new credentials to all individuals who are authorized to access your network, whether they are internal or external stakeholders such as third-party vendors.
Tip: You can find out more about disaster recovery by downloading the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Data Breach Response Business Guide.
Employ Your Best Skills
Look to the data scientists and cyber security experts on your team to provide the backbone and basis for saving your business. Through collaborated efforts and aligning on the same goals, you can create a team of dedicated and qualified individuals with the right tools at their disposal to fight future risks.
Businesses Aren’t the Only Ones at Risk
Hackers also go for low hanging fruit. Consumers are also victims of cyberattacks, especially college students.
Nearly 14% of all cybercrimes were classified as identity theft in 2017, according to the FTC. The attacks resulted in the agency fielding over 133,000 reports of identity theft. For example, successful hackers used consumer data to open new lines of credit or abuse existing financial accounts. That year, credit card fraud jumped 23%, while tax fraud dropped 46%.
Apparently, cybercrime is becoming more lucrative. The FTC recognizes seven crimes as the leading methods of identity theft, including:
1. Bank fraud
2. Credit card fraud
3. Employment and tax fraud
4. Government document and benefit fraud
5. Identity fraud
6. Loan and lease fraud
7. Other identity fraud
During these thefts, credit card holders absorbed $74 million in losses, while prepaid cardholders ate $40 million.
Hackers target college students for many reasons. Ordinarily, they’re young and not used to handling money. Most times, they never look at their bank statements.
College students must practice extra vigilance in protecting their account numbers and passwords. Also, it’s a terrible idea for them to loan out their debit or credit cards.
It’s difficult for entrepreneurs to recover from a data breach. Data breach recovery is time-consuming and expensive. If a breach occurs, you must pay for your IT department, security team and management to deal with the aftermath.
You may also incur additional expenses for training employees about the latest best-practices for cybersecurity. In time, however, you can regain the trust of the public and other stakeholders.
While recovering from any cyberbreach is difficult, it’s much easier if you develop a disaster recovery plan before it happens.
