What to Do If Your Business Data is Breached

Data breaches catch large and small businesses off guard. Do you have a data breach response plan? In this blog, we offer several tips for dealing with a data breach.

Stay Calm

If your company is breached, don’t freak out. Keep your wits and take a deep breath. Keeping a clear head will help you remediate the damage to your company can survive.

Gather Information

It’s important to gather as much information as possible. Talk to the person who discovered the breach, get as many details as possible, and document everything.

Call Your Lawyer

Your lawyer knows your business and its legal obligations. Call them as soon as the breach is discovered.

Communicate with Staff

You don’t want your employees panicking. Let them know what happened and offer assurance that the incident is being handled.

Minimize the Damage

Being proactive prevents a breach from spinning out of control. Work with your IT team to secure networks or take devices offline so you can cut off the hacker’s access. You may also need to change passwords to applications. If you’ve discovered a point of entry, plug the hole as soon as possible.

Contact a Security Expert

Remember, you don’t have to go it alone. A security expert can help you measure the full extent of the damage and protect all affected devices, systems and networks.

Recover Lost Data

If critical data was lost or held by ransomware, contact your data backup partner when your systems are secure again and have critical files are restored to avoid further interruption to your business operations.

Notify Affected Parties

You must notify your customers and vendors if their data is compromised. Otherwise, your company may face legal and regulatory non-compliance fines. A breach notification policy is a good idea as it provides a roadmap for keeping breach affected parties in the know.

Report the Incident to Authorities

When your business experiences a data breach, also notify law enforcement. Your lawyer can help report the incident to local, state, and federal authorities.

Take Advantage of the Opportunity

A data breach may be traumatic, but it offers an opportunity to fortify your company’s security plan. Learn from your mistakes and step up your security game plan. Solicit your employees’ help when crafting security strategies. After all, preventing data breaches is a team effort.

For more breach prevention tips please contact us by phone or complete the form on this page.

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