10 steps to reduce the impact of cyberattacks

As attack methods become more sophisticated and widespread, no organization is immune to suffering a cybersecurity breach. The key to protecting your business is developing controls to make you less of a target and limit potential damage, as well as implementing a comprehensive strategy to react if you fall victim to an attack. Learn how you can position your organization to discourage and respond decisively to an attack if one occurs. Reach these goals through ten key steps to reduce sophisticated cyberattacks on your business.

Proactive steps

Don’t wait to be a victim of a cyberattack before taking steps to secure and protect your data.

Back up your systems regularly and securely, and keep an offline copy. Test your backup restore process. Your organization must have an incident response plan (IRP) in place and run through it with various cyber playbooks. Some policies may require a certain level of organizational cybermaturity, and most can help handle the costs associated with a cybersecurity incident. Have a team ready to assist when needed, including people from internal/external IT, HR, legal and cybersecurity/incident response teams, as well as other key stakeholders. A vulnerability assessment/penetration test of your environment can help determine any gaps to be filled. Tests should be conducted twice a year or during technology changes.

Reactive steps

You’ve fallen victim to a cyberattack and are not sure of the next steps.

A well-crafted and well-rehearsed IRP can save you time when dealing with a cyber incident. Call your cyber insurance provider for advice and next steps in making a claim. Additionally, understand what insurance providers are looking for when it comes to submitting a cyber insurance claim. Breach counsel can help determine what constitutes PII, PHI, PCI or other protected/ regulated data, and when notification is required. Retaining breach counsel also protects your communication under lawyer-client and litigation privilege. Recovering too quickly from a breach may lead to a lack of forensic evidence needed for a claim. Gather what is required for an investigation while assisting in the timely recovery of your systems. Once the breach has been contained and investigated, determine lessons learned and additional steps to mitigate future cyberattacks.