Does your business have a cybersecurity incident response plan?
Omaha, Nebraska, Dec. 17, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — If you own or operate a business, you know how important cybersecurity is. Hackers are always active, and if they find a way to reach your data or systems, your company can face lots of expenses and experience endless headaches as you deal with the consequences. The good news is that a cybersecurity incident response plan can make it easier to recover from a data breach.
“What should a response plan include?” “If we have cyber insurance, do we still need a cybersecurity response plan?” We answer those and other important questions below.
Let’s talk about how to help your business bounce back after a cyberattack, including carrying cyber insurance.
What is a cybersecurity incident?
By any statistic, cybercrime is a big problem for businesses, and it gets bigger every year. Hackers are always coming up with new ways to attack companies, and any business can be a target. Contrary to what some people think, cybercriminals don’t just focus on big companies with deep pockets. In fact, hackers may think smaller companies will have less robust digital safeguards, making them better targets.
But what exactly is a cyber security incident? Common cybersecurity incident categories include:
- Malware. Short for “malicious software,” these attacks involve computer code designed to get into and harm computer systems.
- Phishing. This tactic involves emails or messages appearing to be from trustworthy sources, aimed at tricking recipients into providing sensitive information like passwords or credit card details.
- Denial-of-service (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. These attacks overwhelm a system with traffic, making it unavailable to legitimate users. DDoS attacks utilize multiple sources to amplify the effect.
- Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks. This approach involves intercepting communications between two people with the goal of stealing information or impersonating one of them.
- Social engineering. These attacks rely on manipulating people through psychological tactics to get them to provide confidential information or perform actions that compromise your computer systems.
These are just a few examples of how hackers attempt to steal data or control your computers or network.
What to include in a cybersecurity incident response plan
A cybersecurity incident response plan (sometimes called a data breach response plan) typically includes information on the following:
- Your incident response team. Choose people (or even just name one person) to be responsible for your response. If you pick a team, have each person handle a different aspect of your response (a technical lead, communication lead, etc.).
- Incident identification and reporting. Create well-defined procedures for identifying and reporting potential security incidents, including the criteria for determining the severity of an incident and the method and frequency of reporting on recovery progress.
- Containment and mitigation. Outline the steps you’ll take to contain the impact of an incident (actions like isolating affected systems or blocking malicious traffic) and get rid of the threat (removing malware, patching vulnerabilities, etc.).
- Recovery and restoration. Document how you’ll restore affected systems and recover data to return to the pre-incident state, including backup and recovery strategies.
- Incident communication. Determine how and how often you’ll communicate with your employees, customers or clients, business partners, suppliers, and relevant authorities. Clearly define who needs to be informed, what information to share, and when to communicate.
- Post-incident analysis. Do a thorough review of the incident to identify causes, assess the effectiveness of the response, and develop recommendations for improving future incident prevention and response efforts.
- Training and awareness. Indicate in your document how you plan to provide regular training and awareness programs to educate employees about cybersecurity risks, incident reporting procedures, and their roles in the incident response plan.
- Regular review and updates. The cyberthreat landscape evolves rapidly. Your data breach response plan should be a living document you review regularly and update as needed to reflect changes in your computer and network, emerging threats, and lessons learned from previous incidents.
Get cyber insurance to protect your business financially
It’s important to have the latest antivirus software, firewalls, and other security measures. However, even if you do, there’s no guarantee that hackers won’t find a way past your digital defenses. That’s why every business should have cyber insurance as an element of their cyber incident response.
Purchased as an add-on to a general liability, professional liability, or business owners policy (BOP), cyber insurance helps cover specified costs when someone illegally accesses sensitive information and uses it to commit fraud or it’s likely they will.
Getting an instant, self-service quote for cyber insurance is simple on your website, and if you decide to buy coverage, you can do that online, too.
If you have questions about cyber insurance or business insurance in general, our licensed insurance experts are happy to answer them. Just call 1-844-472-0967.
About biBerk Business Insurance
biBerk can help you with all your small business insurance needs, including: commercial auto, general liability, property and liability, umbrella, and workers’ compensation. https://www.biberk.com
Media Contact:
Rakesh Gupta | 402-408-2870
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