Cyberattacks are a common problem as it affects every type of business and costs billions of dollars to companies worldwide. Regardless of the type and size of the business, falling victim to a cyberattack is probably greater than you think. As per the report by Identity Theft Research Center, the number of reported breach cases during the first four months of 2022 has increased by 14%. The report confirms that hackers can target any business or organization or institutions like healthcare institutions, financial services providers and manufacturers.
A cyberattack is devastating, and company officials are left clueless when a data breach causes major loss in terms of money, market reputation and customer loyalty. Nothing can compensate for the damage caused to a company that goes through a virus attack. After a cyberattack, the officials find ways to get to the main source of the phishing scam, which could be:
- Fraudulent emails – 75% of cyberattacks occur when we unknowingly click on deceptive links that ask you to download software or open a webpage.
- When you open an unknown and suspicious attachment.
- Board members or any employee of an organization gets impersonated.
- Open an email from an unknown source.
- System vulnerabilities.
After a potential cyberattack is identified or detected, you find it difficult to do damage control when all company’s customer data or official data gets publicly exposed. However, it’s important to find the best solutions to recover from it and give a quick response.
First of all, on being notified about a cyberattack, you must instruct the IT department in your company to safeguard the digital assets. Also, contact the company’s finance department to ensure company funds’ safety.
Here are the important steps to reduce the damage caused by a cyberattack:
Implement the action plan enforced by the cybersecurity team
Once the cybersecurity team gets notified about the cyberattack, raising the alarm to the employees of the company is essential. The cybersecurity experts must enforce basic cyber safety instructions to the company’s employees. This will help the team to stop the attack from progressing further and reduce its effects.
Detect the breach or type of attack
Cybersecurity experts must study the nature of the attack to identify the type of cyberattack. They must know about the data breach that has taken place and what level of loss has been incurred to the company or organization. This information gives you insight into the source of a data breach.
After identifying the source of the data breach, the cybersecurity team will find the best solutions and design a plan to mitigate the risks and prevent it from happening again.
Prevent the data theft from causing further loss
Hackers intend to make a backdoor entry into a company’s network system. This type of data breach is known as a passive attack. In this attack, the hackers aim to extract information like bank details and employee details. Therefore, it becomes crucial to make a strong digital presence and stop the breach from causing any loss in the future.
Regardless of the type of cyberattack, the dedicated team must take swift action to reduce its effects, like deactivating internet connectivity to the affected network, restricting access to the affected network, creating new passwords, updating Firewall settings and controlling the usage of the same passwords on multiple accounts. These are some quick changes that should be made.
Examine the data breach and fix the damage
After controlling the spread of data breach, you must find out the areas that failed completely due to the impact of the cyberattack. You must assess the data that was compromised before containing the breach.
Not every damage can be fixed optimally, but an attempt must be made to overcome it and stop it from happening again. You must reinstall software and apps, replace hardware or get repair work done, and restore data from the backup files. Do not miss checking the data log files of your current antivirus and firewall settings. This can help to identify the gaps through which hackers made a wild entry.
However, if you cannot make technical changes, you can consult a cybersecurity professional from an agency to create a solid malware protection system to avoid future attacks.
Create awareness among employees
Let the employees of the organization know about the breach protocols and the company policies concerning cyberattacks. To avoid the situation, restrict employees from using or getting access to the database after their workplace or unknown networks. Educate the employees by teaching them the importance of cybersecurity and providing training sessions discussing ways to prevent a cyberattack.
Share with authorities and customers about the cyberattack
A data breach notification must be sent to important people associated with the company internally and external must know about the incident. Report the incident of a data breach or data theft, or any ransomware attack to the FBI officials. Share the complete report of the cyberattack with the company staff. Let the employees know how the company is working to recover from the data breach.
Discuss with the PR team to find the best way to share the news about cyberattacks with the customers that deal directly with the company. Before it is out in the media, you must ensure that important stakeholders know about it. Being transparent with the clients will strengthen your relationship with the customers. You can also get a press release published in the newspaper informing about the data breach.
A cyberattack is stressful and difficult to handle as its consequences can be costly and time-consuming. By taking concrete steps and working in the right direction, you can fight out a data breach or completely avoid getting hit by a data breach.
Conclusion
Learn from the incidents that happened in other companies and ensure that your data remains safe and secured. Adopt the best cybersecurity measures so that your business will be able to recover faster in the future. To reduce the risk in the future, conduct system security checks regularly and get antivirus software installed to prevent networks or computing systems from getting infected by viruses or malware. This will help prevent your computer from being infiltrated, which leads to data theft.
