Cybercrimes are a constant threat to all businesses, no matter if you have 10 or 10,000 employees. Putting a plan into place and taking the time to identify gaps within your incident handling capabilities is one of the first steps to take when it comes to knowing how to create a cyber incident plan for your business. However, a growing number of businesses are struggling to defend themselves against cyber threats, putting themselves at risk, as well as their clients and customers.
Developing a cyber incident response plan is a vital step toward creating effective and robust management and technical capabilities. It should provide instructions on how to respond to a serious security incident or technical breach, such as a data leak, ransomware attack or loss of sensitive information. Our team at CYFOR Secure are highly skilled in mitigating the damaging and often devastating effects of a cyber attack, but we also believe that prevention is better than the cure.
Here, we’ll take you through how to create a cyber incident response plan for your business and how to protect valuable data and information within your network.
Have an incident response team contact
A lot of cyber attacks don’t just affect computers or IT infrastructure and security threats can originate from a number of different sources. As a result, it is important for you to have a contact in place who you can contact for incident response should you notice a cyber attack. Having a dedicated and responsible person, who is easily contactable, helps to keep communication channels clear and free from confusion in the event of an attack.
Cyber attacks can cause a lot of distress amongst your employees, especially if their data has been exposed in the breach. If you’re wondering how to create a cyber incident response plan for your business, then this is one of the first steps you should consider taking. Our incident response retainers provide sophisticated forensic capabilities which can help with the response in the event of an attack and we can then provide advice on any found vulnerabilities in order to prevent future cyber incidents.
Identify vulnerabilities and critical assets
No matter how sophisticated your cyber security is, you should always assume that there are still some vulnerabilities within your network. When looking at how to create a cyber incident response plan, identifying these vulnerabilities, as well as any critical assets, means that you can better protect these from the outset.
By identifying the most critical assets, you can allow your incident response team to prioritise their recovery efforts in the event of an attack. If they know about the most vulnerable assets and data which you consider to be most critical, then they can quickly act to contain and limit any potential consequences. If your biggest vulnerability is your employees, then make sure to improve your employee training procedures to find weak spots where they may need more insight.
For example, you may find that your employees are particularly vulnerable to phishing emails. At CYFOR Secure, we can use phishing simulation exercises to gauge how your team would respond to a cyber security attack that you can use as part of your training exercises and are wondering how to create a cyber incident response plan for your business.
Respond in the right way
When it comes to knowing how to create a cyber incident response plan for your business, putting steps in place for how to respond in the right way can help with how your business recovers and responds to cyber attacks. Typically, cyber attacks are detected in one of two ways. They can be precursor, which is when you detect the signs before the attack happens, or they can be indicators, which is when they are detected during or after an attack.
Prior to a cyber attack, for example, you may notice a high volume of failed login attempts, which could determine that a hacker is trying to gain access to your network. You may also notice that you get antivirus software alerts that notify you of a potential breach.
Following this, you need to be aware of how to respond in the right way. It may be that you need to inform a third party, such as our incident response team, who can assist further and provide insight and intelligence into how to defend against attacks. You may also need to identify customers or clients if their data has been compromised or notify certain third parties.
Want to know more about how to create a cyber incident response plan for your business?
Although prevention and education should be the primary focus when it comes to minimising the threat of a cyber attack, knowing how to create a cyber incident response plan for your business means that you can act swiftly in the event of an attack. For more information on how to create a cyber incident response plan for your business, or to find out more about our range of cyber incident response services, contact the CYFOR Secure team today.