Cybersecurity teams probably have their work cut out right now, just looking at Ransomware Attacks alone. Every 14 Seconds, a Business becomes a Victim of a Ransomware Attack.
Over 560.000 new pieces of malware are detected daily. In the US, there are roughly 2,200 cyber attacks each day. Do we need to continue?
So, we wouldn’t say, it’s a case of how cybersecurity teams with privileged access should react to a potential breach; It’s how they eventually will have to act to a potential breach. In the last 12 months, 74 % of large businesses reported cyberattacks or security breaches. How long will it take until the remaining 26 % do?
Read on to learn how security teams should react to a potential breach.
Determine Attack-Type
You can’t act if you don’t know what type of attack it is. Some of the most common attacks include:
- Malware
- Ransomware
- Supply chain attacks
- Denial-of-Service
- Phishing
- Social engineering
Some are easier to manage than others, as you might guess. An attack on a supply chain is far more extensive and expensive than a malware attack, which might only temporarily shut down a system.
Understanding the type of attack helps determine the extent of damage caused by it—as we say, some will be more extensive than others.
Act Quickly and Efficiently
The faster a cyber security team acts, the better. Acting efficiently should be part of what’s known as an incident response plan. You will do so if you don’t have an incident response plan after reading this. As the name suggests, a plan determines how a cybersecurity team responds to an incident.
The first move is to contain the breach (obviously) to avoid further damage. Trust us, the word is can. Once malware is downloaded or data is breached, it can be tricky for an SME without a robust cyber security team to contain an attack. It’ll often involve isolating affected systems, etc.
Teams should then move on to patching vulnerabilities, updating systems, changing configurations, etc. This post goes into the specifics in more detail.
Some SMEs forget about data preservation for attack analysis and education. During this stage, communicating with all necessary parties, including top management team members, legal representatives, and external IT Experts, will also be essential. Worst of all is telling the people it affects.
What To Do if It’s a Breach
If investigations show a breach, the cybersecurity team must intensify its response. After following the steps discussed in the acting efficiently section, teams should liaise with legal and regulatory bodies to ensure compliance with breach notification laws and lessen legal implications. Transparency should be paramount.
Following that, remove the threat from the system. This entails eliminating malware, closing security loopholes, and ensuring no backdoors or ongoing threats exist—the patching vulnerabilities we spoke about. Whatever the team does, the system should remain down until the situation is contained.
Business downtime is one of the reasons why cyber attacks cost brands so much, but it’s an absolute necessity.
Future Security Measures
Trust us; there will be lessons to learn. Attention must shift towards solid defense mechanisms against the recurrence of similar breaks in security. Someone or something caused the vulnerability – whether it was a weak system with obvious vulnerabilities or an employee opening an email they shouldn’t have.
That’s where saving data for investigation and learning comes into play. It’s essential to do an extensive post-incident analysis. Cybersecurity teams should update their incident response plans based on the lessons learned.
It is essential to have advanced security measures such as multi-factor authentication, encryption, and intrusion-prevention systems, and Cloud security posture management. A good cybersecurity team will ensure they are already in place, but not all brands work with a good cyber security team. Regular audits can also help.
Mistakes You Should Never Make
Cybersecurity teams should avoid several critical mistakes in the aftermath of a potential breach.
Firstly, do not ignore the incident or delay the response. Time matters most. Secondly, don’t make public statements without knowledge – that may give wrong information or panic people. That applies more to big brands – you won’t find SMEs doing big press releases about cyber attacks.
It is also vital not to tamper with evidence to fix the problem quickly. That would interfere with forensic analysis and legal investigations in the matter.
One final warning: if your team lacks expertise in handling breaching incidents, they mustn’t be handled entirely within departmental limits. Engaging external cyber security experts can provide valuable insights and assistance.
Failure to learn from this happening and improve security measures will expose organizations to more attacks in the future…but we didn’t need to tell you that, did we?
Cyber threats continue to loom large – it’s almost impossible to ignore them. And the worst thing is, cyber threats are continuously evolving. What we tell you today might not be true tomorrow. Strategies and Practices employed by cybersecurity teams must continuously update as the threat landscape does.