Despite the cyber security measures you may have worked hard to cultivate in your small business, things often don’t always go to plan and breaches can happen. In fact, according to the Australian Cyber Security Centre, Australian businesses are facing increasingly sophisticated and capable cyber criminals who are targeting their assets, including bank accounts, email data, and business devices – to name a few.
Small businesses face additional challenges in this cyber security landscape. With just as many competing business priorities as larger enterprises, they usually lack dedicated staff with a committed IT cyber security focus, making it more challenging to conduct effective threat and incident response.
Despite this, there are actions a small business can take to help them get things back up and running as quickly as possible. Once implemented, these can also serve as ways to better protect themselves and customers from the threat of a future breach.
Steps to take to help recover faster from a cyber security breach
Learning that your business has been targeted in a cyber-attack is a stressful experience for any business owner, and particularly for a small business. Seeking professional support and advice (including legal advice) during an experience like this is highly recommended. That being said, there are also things you can do to help your business get back up and running faster.
Let’s explore below some of the actions you can take to both help your preparedness as well as your response.
Determine the level of the breach
It’s difficult to develop an appropriate response to a cyber attack without first understanding the extent of the breach. Conduct an assessment of the scope of the attack so you can get clear on the internal and external impacts to your business and customers.
[H3] Deploy your incident response plan
Ensure you have a cyber security incident response plan in place. This could be as minimal as a checklist of what actions to take in response to particular threats, right through to a thorough Standard Operating Procedure. Either way, it’s important to make the process for containment straight-forward and well-known among your team. Once in place, it’s important to deploy your incident response plan as soon as possible post breach to help minimise its impact on your business continuity and customers.
Identify and isolate impacted devices
If the cyber security breach has directly impacted laptops, phones or other devices, be sure to isolate it to help prevent further spread. Ransomware attacks are generally the type to target your business devices and work by locking up or encrypting files so you can no longer access them. By accounting for this in your incident response plan, you can help avoid the expense of restoring or recovering your compromised business systems.
Keep employees, suppliers and customers in the loop
Communication is key during a cyber security incident. Widespread awareness of the situation can help your users recognise and possibly prevent further loss or impact. Plus, a breach often means potentially compromised data and assets, so be sure to let impacted stakeholders know early and update them often. Even if you don’t have all the answers, being transparent can help to reduce reputational impacts.
Prioritise the systems that need to be back up and running
Identify which of your business systems are the highest priority to recover and get back up and running for your business to function. This could include your payment processing, customer relationship management software, client fulfilment, sales systems or inventory management.
Restore your backup (if it’s secure)
Backing up and restoring your business files not only offers peace of mind during normal business operations, it can also make it faster and more straightforward to reboot business continuity after a breach. Make sure your team has turned on automatic updates across devices and periodically test that you can restore your files successfully. It can also be a good idea to store a physical backup somewhere safe offsite. Once that’s in place, be sure to check your backup remains uncompromised before restoring it.
Seek professional support
Seeking the support of cyber security professionals both in helping your business be better prepared, and in response to an incident, is generally a good idea. Ideally, have a company or individual identified prior to an incident that you can call on should you need them. This can help ensure that you get the support and expertise you require to act promptly and appropriately.
Review your cyber security protections
Dealing with a cyber security breach is obviously your main priority during an incident. Once it’s been contained, it’s important to then review how effective your existing cyber security measures are and whether there are any areas for improvement when it comes to your incident response plan and cyber security culture.
How TBTC QLD North can help
Here at TBTC QLD North, we have experience supporting small businesses with cyber security preparedness and can recommend appropriate solutions to support and protect your important business data. Talk to us today and let’s get your business securing.
