A security breach can spell doom for your organization, but the most severe damage occurs in the hours and days after the breach. How you respond initially is key to weathering the storm. Knowing how to act swiftly and effectively to a security breach will minimize harm and enable you to restore normal operations ASAP.
Let’s walk through the steps you should take if you experience a security breach so you can protect your organization from the most devastating consequences.
1. Contain the breach
The injection of viruses and other malware is usually not a one-off attack but instead designed to be ongoing, spreading from one device or database to the next to maximize damage or profit for the perpetrator. You need to act fast to limit the spread and contain the breach to minimize its effect on your systems.
- Isolate affected systems: Disconnect computers, servers, and any other networked devices that may be infected from the network.
- Disable accounts: Temporarily disable accounts that show any signs of being compromised, such as those with unusual login activities.
- Change credentials: Immediately change passwords for affected accounts and consider requiring a password reset for all your users as a precaution.
2. Assess and report the damage
Determine what type of data was accessed, which might include personal information, financial records, intellectual property, and customer data. Then make a report on the extent of the damage for stakeholders and IT support staff.
You must also be swift to identify any legal or regulatory obligations related to the breach. Depending on the nature of the data compromised, you may need to comply with data protection regulations — such as the General Data Protection Regulation, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or the California Consumer Privacy Act — and you may have a limited time to do so to avoid penalties.
3. Investigate the breach
To determine the best course of action to mitigate the damage of a data breach, you must learn its cause and collect evidence and actionable information. An effective investigation should include:
- Identifying the cause: Determine how the breach occurred, examining possible causes of attack, such as phishing, malware, system vulnerabilities, or insider threats.
- Documenting findings: Keep detailed records of the investigation, including how the breach was discovered, the methods used by the attackers, and the timeline of events.
- Collecting logs and data: Preserve all relevant logs, data, and affected systems for forensic analysis.
- Engaging experts: Consider hiring outsourced cybersecurity experts to conduct a detailed analysis of the breach.
4. Mitigate and remediate
How you go about fixing or limiting the damage will depend largely on the nature of the breach and its scope. First, you’ll need to do full scans of all parts of your IT infrastructure to determine if the attack is truly over. This may require specialized software and tools.
You may also need to consider reverting your systems to an earlier state using data backups. If you don’t have timely, complete data backups that can be restored quickly, you might be stuck doing a hard reset of your systems and might permanently lose data.
5. Review and learn
Once you are sure the attack is over and the damage has been contained, it’s time to review what you have learned from this incident to ensure it is not repeated.
- Conduct a debrief: Hold a debriefing session with the response team to review the incident and the response efforts.
- Identify lessons learned: Analyze what worked well and what didn’t. Identify areas for improvement in your incident response plan and overall cybersecurity posture.
- Update your incident response plan: Revise your incident response plan based on the lessons learned.
6. Continuous monitoring and improvement
Once you’ve learned all you can, you must redouble your security efforts to stop the next breach. The fastest and most effective way to achieve this is by partnering with an experienced and reliable managed IT services provider that has extensive cybersecurity experience, such as USWired
Our team of expert cybersecurity consultants and technicians will analyze and remediate any data breaches, as well as implement, manage, and monitor a diverse array of cybersecurity tools.
By constantly updating and upgrading your cybersecurity posture and monitoring your systems for threats, we’ll minimize the chances of a breach happening in the first place. With the peace of mind you gain from outsourcing, you can put your full focus on your core operations without fear of a business-ending data breach. Contact us to get started.
