Data breaches are one of the most common types of cyberattacks that happen today, and they can happen to anyone. All it takes is for one employee to click on a phishing email, and a data breach can easily occur. You may want to ask yourself, what to do if this happens to my company?
What can you do about it? First, the basic precautions: a company should always have a data breach response plan in place. Even if it would mean for the company to invest in getting their cybersecurity outsourced, and they would have to take out business loans (similar to the small business loans in Orlando) for that purpose! This is not just for major incidents but also for smaller incidents that can be just as damaging. There are many hacker groups out there looking for vulnerable websites to exploit.
More about Data Breach
A data breach is a cybersecurity incident that occurs when an individual’s personal information is accidentally (or deliberately) released to the public. It’s not uncommon for these data breaches to be costly for companies, and consumers often face hardships retrieving their information. Unfortunately, these data breaches are not always avoidable. However, there are various steps that businesses and consumers can take, likely to mitigate the damage during and after a data breach.
Here are the following tips to take if ever a data breach happens to your business or company:
- Review your business’ legal and ethical obligations. While you need to meet your company’s legal obligations to keep data protected, you also need to consider your own ethical obligations. In the aftermath of a data breach, it can be easy to lose track of some of your responsibilities – especially if you’re not an expert in legal or regulatory compliance issues. Companies that collect or store consumer data have certain rules (like the GDPR laws in Europe – check the UK website for more info) they need to adhere to, for the protection of customer privacy. From the moment you become aware of a breach, you have certain obligations to your customers, industry, and the public. After all, you’ll be the first one called upon the carpet if the breach turns out to be a violation of your industry’s laws or regulations, so it’s important to know the facts from the outset. Once you have fulfilled all necessary obligations and the breach has somewhat passed, you can perhaps start thinking about future solutions. One such solution could be getting new Mobile Threat Protection software for every employee’s work phone so that in the future, any possibility of threat can be eliminated before it has the chance to bloom.
- Stay Calm and Be careful with your response. There are a lot of things that can go wrong after a major data breach. If you are not careful, you can make it worse. While it’s important to be aware of the possibility of a data breach and know what steps you should take if you are affected, it’s also important to know what not to do in the event of a breach.
- Examine what data was breached and act on your findings. Responding to a data breach can be a very emotional time. The first thing you need to do is examine what data was breached and act on your findings. The truth is that data can be breached in many ways. But you should be aware that there are many other scenarios to be aware of. For example, if a company is hacked, then any information stored on the company’s site is at risk of being stolen. This can create problems for the business as well as for customers. The best thing you can do is to minimize the damage. It is not possible to completely eliminate the risk of a data breach, but you can minimize the possibility.
- Know what could happen to the data and to your business. Any data stored on systems or devices connected to the Internet or an intranet is potentially at risk. The data may include customer information, such as names and addresses, or employee data, such as salaries and health-care information. But it can also include information about the company, including financial data and marketing and sales information. The truth is that businesses have to face the reality that they will be breached. The question is how you’ll deal with it when it happens. To be ready for the worst-case scenario, you need to know what steps you’ll need to take, both in the immediate aftermath and in the event of a follow-up attack.
- Keep your customers informed about a data breach that has occurred or is occurring. You can do this in many different ways. One way is to use social media to help spread the word. You can also send out a letter or email if you think that social media would not be the best option. Another option is to place a notice on your website. As a small business owner, it is important to know your customers, which is a great way to keep them in the loop.
Data breaches can happen to anyone, not just big companies like Target or Sony. If you run a small business yourself, it’s important to know what to do if your company suffers a data breach.