How To Respond To A Data Breach

A remote working environment requires more digital technologies and processes than in the past. That is the present kind of workplace, and it has produced a data violation activity risk.

Brands like Zoom, EasyJet, and Twitter are only some of the biggest examples where data breaches have happened in the recent past. It is unfortunate that the data situation would arise at any company, irrespective of its vertical and size. If anything, organizations have to realize that it could affect their business at any time, especially if their employees mainly work remotely in the pandemic period. Under these circumstances, all business enterprises have to be prepared to react to the breach so that they can reduce its impact in an effective way.

Starting With The Basics Of Cybersecurity

In the event of an organization not acting as per cybersecurity best practices, then it may fail to deal with the breach in that way. Some companies have no idea about what forms of data they possess, where it is, or whether it is exposed due to too many permissions. Those kinds of companies cannot quickly evaluate the extent of the event and stop its access.

The foundation of effective incident response is to act as per elementary cybersecurity practices. Some of those practices are making sure sensitive data being in secured places, eliminating too much exposure of data, and canceling unwanted access rights. Proper visibility levels allow IT teams to discover the underlying reason for a breach fast, analyze the context surrounding that event and take enough remedial steps for it.

Do you realize what kind of data you possess, where it is, and how workers are interacting with it? If yes, you could channel your security attempts to a particular system, the form of data, or user, which can considerably improve the effectiveness of the response.

Making Detection Capabilities Better

As per a recent Microsoft report, malicious actors have become more sophisticated over the last year, with techniques that complicate detecting them. That is concerning because the more time a data violation stays unnoticed, the worse its effects could be for a business enterprise.

Being sure of that entity’s capability to detect a cyber intrusion punctually is a vital aspect of incident response strategies. It is crucial to automate the process of detecting security incidents. Why? Because it allows an enterprise to decide the best possible response faster and reduce likely damage. So, ask yourself this question: Does my information technology team have an automated way of monitoring user activity or getting frequent warnings about unusual user behavior? If yes, then your likelihood of detecting the violation before malicious actors compromise your organizational data would be better.

The 2020 Data Risk & Security Report from Netwrix proves the above-mentioned. As per Netwrix’s study, enterprises with automated ways to monitor data sharing could notice security incidents within minutes. On the other hand, organizations that lack automated processes could even spend weeks detecting those incidents.

Making Sure Of Incident Response Being Actionable

Almost every incident response program (IRP) is not only documented but also stored on an organizational intranet. Those kinds of documents generally include procedures, standards, and policies. Anyhow, standardizing the different IRP aspects is a must to allow for its good execution. That includes unambiguously defining every organizational role in an IRP to allow everybody to familiarize themselves with their responsibilities.

You must also confirm that all workers are trained about the things to do in the event of noticing security incidents. That will aid your organization in reducing the possibility of the breach due to manual error because workers would better realize the possible damage from one mistake.

Ensuring that workers know the way of reporting the incident and which party is tasked with acting further against it is also vital. It is vital to thoroughly test an IRP too. That can aid the entity in identifying and addressing any communication/technical gap in their IRP so that in the event of an incident, there would be a smooth response.

Recovering And Learning From Mistakes

In the case of any data being altered or lost due to the breach, you must prioritize the process of recovering key data. Moreover, it is vital to pay attention to organizational recovery for normal operations’ restoration as well. After completing that, the last step would be to include lessons from the breach in a company’s security strategy. That includes recognizing and blocking the security loopholes that drove the breach, thus removing the possibility of another identical intrusion from attackers down the road.

Data violations seem inevitable, particularly when the so-called ‘cyber pandemic’ keeps existing. So, business enterprises must stay in a ready-to-respond mode always. Anyhow, in the event of IT teams being concerned about the above tips and arming themselves with intuitive detection tools, then they could have fewer losses due to data breaches.