Different ways a Data Breach can happen There are various sorts of cyberattacks leading to data breaches. The phishing technique is the most used by Cybercriminals to gain access to systems in an organization. In 2022, 68% of email cyberattacks or data breaches are due to Phishing links. Ransomware is malicious software preventing access to a system or sensitive information by encrypting the data and then demanding a ransom to retrieve the data. In Q1 of 2022, 54% of ransomware attacks hit organizations leading to a data breach. Social Engineering Attack – A hacker or cybercriminal uses a bogus offer to entice a victim into a trap to give up personal and financial information or install malware on the system.

What to do after a Data Breach?

Firstly, confirm the authenticity of the data breach and validate the type of data loss. Here are the immediate steps you should take after a data breach:

• Notify Your Company Employees and Customers About the Data Breach

Companies that encounter data breaches are solely responsible for informing all the concerned parties about their situation and potential risks. Concealing the details of an actual data breach is not advisable as your company strives to serve its customers. When their data is compromised, they must be aware of it to protect themselves. The same applies to your company’s employees to avoid identity theft and other criminal activity. Allowing customers and employees to know the data breach specifics enables them to take necessary action against false attempts to use their financial information.

• Freeze your accounts

Most cyberattacks are financially motivated. As a precaution, block all your financial transactions by contacting your respective banks and briefing them on the potential data breach. Also, change passwords to all your online accounts. It is vital to protect yourself from monetary loss.

• Protecting your IT systems

Cybercriminals have your credentials and are liable to access them. Therefore, attempt to change your system passwords and access codes. Strong passwords for different systems are a must. Briefly disable all remote access to your system. Without further ado, get to work on identifying affected IT systems and servers due to data breaches and restoring them. If data backup is available on your cloud servers, then download to create local backups. Investigate if there are possibilities of more than one data breach, as it may leave you vulnerable to further breaches.

• Assess the Data Breach

Victims of data breaches could be customers, employees, and third-party vendors. When a business or organization suffers a data breach, it is vital to understand the severity of the data breach. It differs from service to service as per the nature of your business. Compromising email addresses can have a domino effect on potential identity theft. Question yourself to know the extent of the data breach:

• What type of data got breached or exposed?
• Are the financial information of clients and employees breached?
• Is it identity theft?
• How much is the data loss?
• How much Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is at stake?

It is crucial to trace the origin of the security breach. Investigate the following to understand how cybercriminals got the opportunity to exploit your systems.

• Who has access to the exploited servers?
• Which were the active ports when the breach happened?
• What triggered the security breach?
• Who has privileged access to sensitive information?
• Is it a user activity leading to a data breach?

Check your log activity using Firewall, Endpoint Protection Software, or Intrusion Detection System to trace the path of the security breach. Although data breaches are inevitable, strengthening your cyber security posture and being reactive after a data breach can be helpful.

• Educate your employees about data breach protocols

Educate your IT and non-IT employees about data breach policies and protocols. More importantly, safeguard yourself and your businesses from falling victim to data breaches over and over again. Restrict data access to employees depending on their job roles. Conduct regular training and sessions for your employees to prevent data breaches. Complacency is majorly a concern for businesses novice to cyber security breaches. So, bring new security policies and procedures to educate your staff on cyber threats and cyberattacks.

• Deploy Cyber Kill Chain Framework

After the data breach, address the impact and understand the security loopholes in your IT environment. Deploy a cyber security framework to simulate the cyberattack using Cyber Kill Chain. It demonstrates a 3rd person’s point of view in understanding the entry point of a cybercriminal into your business’s security perimeter. It provides visibility into your security posture and where the security vulnerabilities lie. Work on fixing them and establish new cyber security procedures and patches to defend your businesses from further cyber incidents.

• Define new Cyber Security Strategies and Policies

Data breaches are way too expensive in terms of money and business reputation. Redefining and setting up healthier cyber security protocols and procedures is a perfect place to start. Have a reliable security team to be proactive and reactive to cyber threats and incidents. Perform vulnerability scans and penetration testing procedures for your servers and virtual machines. Security patches must be up to date without delay. Wrap Up A data breach brings down your company’s reputation and trust among customers. Data breaches are unavoidable. Money is the motivation behind cyber security breaches for cybercriminals. Therefore, maintaining proper password hygiene, the best endpoint security solution, phishing awareness training sessions for all employees, and the best Data Loss Prevention (DLP) plan are critical. Perform regular penetration testing and IT security audits and stay compliant with the latest cyber security standards and procedures. Educate your employees regularly on phishing and social engineering attacks. Get cyber liability insurance for your business. Ensure your robust cyber security team deploys an effective actionable countermeasure if and when a potential breach occurs.   ABOUT SNS Secure Network Solutions (SNS) provides a quantifiable, risk-based approach to building a global structure of cybersecurity infrastructure based on internationally recognized frameworks and practices. We have been providing services and catering to clients across industries for the last 22 years. Write to us at [email protected] or visit us at www.snsin.com.