The Right Way To Deal With A Cyber-Attack On Your Business
Many companies are investing heavily in online security solutions because the threat of cyber-attacks is always looming. Unfortunately, criminals move fast and they come up with new ways around security systems quickly, so the companies that develop the software are often playing catch up. That means that regardless of how much money you spend, you’re never completely safe from a cyber-attack, so you need to be prepared for one if it does happen. As long as your response is swift and you take the right steps in the immediate aftermath, you can limit the damage and hopefully, avoid losing too much sensitive data. If you don’t have a plan in place already, this is what you should do in the event of a cyber-attack.
Identify The Breach
People get the wrong idea about cyber-attacks and they assume that it’s something that you’ll notice immediately, but that isn’t the case at all. In fact, it can take weeks or even months before you notice that there is a data breach, in which case, you’re going to lose a lot of sensitive information.
Cyber-attacks only slip by unnoticed for that long if you are not monitoring your systems properly, so make sure that you have a well-staffed IT team in place or you outsource to a third party that can monitor your systems effectively. When a cyber-attack does happen, you need to identify when it happened, where it happened, and what kind of attack it is as quickly as possible.
I recently was working with someone who’s website got hijacked and their homepage was redirecting to random spam pages instead of their home page.
Contain The Problem
Once you know what the nature of the attack is and where the vulnerable points are, your TI team can set about containing the problem. The faster you do this, the more you will be able to reduce the damage that has been done.
The recent problem I ran into on someone’s site was that a plugin was causing a unique vulnerability and allowed that site to be hacked. This makes it important to continually update the plugins on your site, as well as limiting the plugins to as little as possible.
You really only want to use as many plugins as are necessary, because each one can open your site to unexpected risks.
Recover The Data
As soon as your systems are secured again, you need to recover the data that has been lost. This shouldn’t be a problem if you invest money in backup and recovery systems (like the ones at umbrella-ms.com) and you’ll be back to normal in no time.
You will only run into problems if you do not have a proper backup in place, so make sure that you do. With backups in place, you can quickly get your data back and have your site up and running in no time.
Likely if you are just getting started there isn’t much you need to get back, but as your business and content grow on your website this can become increasingly important.
Report The Attack
If an attack has taken place, there are certain people that need to know about it. Any stakeholders in the business should be informed, in case the attack affects them in any way. But the most important people that you need to inform are your customers.
There is a chance that sensitive information, like their credit card details, has been stolen. They need to know as soon as possible so they can contact their bank and take the necessary steps to protect themselves from fraud. It’s a tough conversation to have, so read this guide at business2community.com for some good advice.
Boost Security
After the attack has been dealt with and you have informed everybody, it’s time to start looking to the future. If your systems were breached, it’s likely that you have some weak points, in which case, you need to boost your cyber-security software and put new measures in place to avoid another attack in the future.
As long as you act fast and follow these steps, you can limit the damage done by a cyber-attack and stop it from affecting your business too much.
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