The world today is more connected through the Internet than ever before. This has allowed people and businesses to be far more efficient and has helped lead to many new conveniences. However, there are risks associated with this digitalization as well, which includes the risk of being a victim of cyber security. Those organizations that are a victim of cyber security are at risk of losing valuable customer data, intellectual property and other pieces of information.
As the risk of a cyber security infiltration can be significant, being able to avoid them and reduce the impact of an incident is very important. One way to do this is by improving your overall cyber resilience. There are several tips that can be followed to help improve your company’s cyber resilience, be better protected and be prepared to respond accordingly if an incident occurs.
Assess the Impact of a Cyber Attack
Prior to developing a prevention and response plan, it is important that you are able to properly assess the risks that come with an attack. A cyber-attack can affect a business a number of different ways. Those that are a victim of this could incur operational setbacks, reputation damage, financial losses and even incur violations due to lack of data security compliance.
Identify Potential Risks to Business
For most businesses, it will be very clear that a data hack could be very negative for the overall operations of the company. To ensure that your business is not vulnerable to a cyber-attack, you will want to understand what the potential risks for your company are. This part of the process will have to include assessing what type of data you store, where it is stored online and offline, what firewalls and protections are put in place and who has access to it.
Development of Incident Response Plan
While it is important that you are able to identify risk, being able to respond to an active threat is very important. To do this, you will need to have a thorough incident response plan in place. The following parts should be part of any response plan.
Preparation for Incident
Being prepared for an incident is very important. This plan should include clearly identifying who from the company will be on the response team and what the line of communication will be.
Identify Attack
One problem that companies have is not identifying an attack on time. In many cases, the impact of an attack could be reduced had the parties responded on time. You should identify what factors would identify that an attack was taking place and respond appropriately.
Containment and Eradication
If you are able to identify an attack early on, you should be able to contain it. This process can include cutting off access to the outside threats and even removing certain sensitive data from the company network. Once contained, eradicating the attack should be possible as well.
Recover from Attack
While the attack to your systems could be contained and even eradicated, it could cause long-lasting damage that will keep you vulnerable. The team should work to ensure that your security systems are returned to their original state. During this process, you should also ensure that another attack does not occur.
Learn from Experience
Finally, you need to make sure that you learn from the experience. Cyber-attacks are bound to happen again in the future. You should review your processes to make sure you know what worked well and what needs improvement. This could also result in the need for enhanced training to ensure you are prepared for the next attack.
Ultimately, the risk of data attacks is serious and something all businesses need to take seriously. By following these tips and steps, you can improve your cyber resiliency to ensure you are prepared.
