Typical cyber security management plans focus only on preventing an attack from occurring in the first place. Yet, despite a company’s best efforts, security breaches can still occur. However, a breach doesn’t need to have disastrous consequences. As long as companies have an incident response protocol in place, this could minimize the collateral damage that a cyber security breach can cause.
The goal is to establish a reliable method for not only identifying a breach immediately when it occurs, but to establish a series of protocols that will squash the intrusion before it causes damage. Here’s an overview of how businesses of all sizes can establish an incident response protocol that will minimize damage and strengthen the overall cyber security management plan.
Detection
Intrusion detection and response go hand in hand, and how effective the incident response strategy is depends on how sophisticated the methods are for detecting intrusions. The longer a hacker has to extract data, the worse the collateral damage will be. If it takes hours or even days to detect the breach, it could be too late to mitigate the potential losses. Detection can be achieved through a combination of automatic means using tools such as software programs and manual methods when professionals scan security logs visually.
Response
Businesses of all sizes need to determine in advance how they will respond to an incident once it occurs. There are two things that need to be considered when it comes to assessing response. First of all, the organization needs to have series of protocols in place that outlines how they will respond to the incident. Secondly, they will need to determine how they can prevent the security breach from having a major impact. Overall, the industry response plan should take into account the company’s size and industry, as well as technological factors that are unique to each company.
Review
After a security incident occurs, it is a good idea to perform a thorough review to assess not only why it happened, but also to determine what can be done in the future to prevent further incidents. Why is it that the security measures that were in place didn’t work? How can it be prevented in the future?
Overall, there are multiple steps to performing an effective review, including talking with employees, customers, and clients who may have been impacted. From there, it is important to discover the true nature of the security breach. Knowing the exact steps that the hacker took to perform the intrusion will enable companies to establish a solid action plan for coming up with a solution.
In an ideal world, a well-designed cyber security plan will prevent security breaches from occurring. However, the threat of a security breach will always be there despite a business’s best efforts. That is why it is so important to have a well-established set of protocols in place for responding to an incident once it does occur.
