SpartanTec, Inc. Columbia: What Should a Company Do After a Data Breach?

The news that data breach is increasing is not good news for businesses, despite all the chaos in the world. Data breaches are only going to get worse. It happened most recently in Colonial Pipeline and JBS, which are major meatpackers.

These are just two examples of many throughout the year. Data breaches don’t just affect large companies. Every year, the same problem affects smaller and mid-sized companies.

What should you do if this happens to your company? Here are 7 steps to follow after a data breach.

Here are 7 steps to take after a data breach

What should a company do? Inform Your Clients and Employees about the cybersecurity breach. Don’t keep information about data breaches secret. Your business is about providing services to customers and clients. They need to be informed about any breach of their data to ensure that they are protected.

This is also true for your employees. Your employees’ personal information could also have been compromised, which could lead to identity theft or other criminal activity.

Inform Your Clients and Employees about the Data Breach

It is important to inform everyone within your company and clients about what has happened. Customers should be able to let the credit bureaus know the details so they can take appropriate action if someone attempts to use their financial information. If you don’t have data security in place, your employees will take similar steps to protect themselves.

Your company could be sued if you keep the data breach information secret. This could result in lawsuits against your company for allowing private information to be misused. A lack of trust could cause you to lose valuable employees and customers.

Secure Your Systems

What was the source of the data breach in your IT system? Without delay, get to work on fixing the problem. You could have suffered multiple breaches, which can leave you open to more if they don’t stop.

Your company should change your passwords and access codes after a data breach. This will allow you to get your files back on track. The codes are available to the person responsible for the breach and they can use them as much as they like until you block them. It’s a good idea temporarily to shut down remote access to your systems as a precaution.

It is also smart to create a mobile breach team in order to respond quickly. This team may include more than your IT professionals on site. These may include lawyers, human resources, communications, management, and others.

Find out What was Breached

Which type of data was compromised in your company? Did it include financial information about your customers? Did hackers also steal information that could give them access to identities? These are crucial questions that a company should ask following a data breach.

A criminal can simply steal something as small as a birthday address to gain personal information about someone. Even compromising mailing addresses can lead to the theft of personal information.

Passwords can be easily hacked to gain access to email accounts. Worst is that your employees’ and customers credit card information could be stolen.

It is easy for credit bureaus to raise red flags about stolen cards. However, it is important to determine exactly how many credit card numbers were stolen. To find out every detail, you need to have your IT services team working on it. This will allow you to avoid making ambiguous statements in letters or calls.

Check to Ensure Your Cybersecurity Defenses Are Working

After your company has dealt with the data breach, it is time to verify that any cybersecurity procedures or patches you have put in place work. It is possible to miss some things if you rush to get your IT security in order.

It is important to test the hacker’s method to access your data and ensure it doesn’t happen again. It is possible for it to happen again, hours or even days later, if you don’t do a thorough test.

Trust your IT team to determine the source and how it occurred. This can be done quickly by a reliable security team.

As part of your penetration testing, make sure that all servers and virtual machines are scanned. These areas are often the most susceptible to data breaches. Prior vulnerabilities should be fixed, as well as any security holes discovered during inspections.

All Data Breach Protocols Need to Be Updated

You might want to update the protocols that you used to notify your staff about data breaches. Are they well-informed on how to handle it? Maybe you were surprised to discover that your staff didn’t know how to deal with it because it had never happened before.

Many businesses have never experienced security breaches before. This is why complacency can be a problem. It is important to take the time to train your staff and establish new procedures.

It is a smart idea to outsource an IT support team after a data breach, so that they can implement new security technology. They can help you and your employees learn about how to avoid phishing emails.

Acute awareness and education are the best tools to prevent data breaches. Hackers will find ways to infiltrate your data faster if you don’t know as much.

Get Cyber Liability Insurance

Cyber liability insurance policies can help protect data loss. It’s a smart idea to protect yourself even further. Data loss can lead to large financial losses, as well as the possibility of paying out settlements to people who have been compromised.

It is essential to immediately protect your company after a data breach. You might not have experienced a data breach the last time you do business.

Get expert IT support

Electric can help your company navigate the challenges of a distributed workforce. Electric can help you implement security policies that are consistent with industry best practices throughout your company. This will help to prevent data breaches.