Nibletz Staff
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Every year more and more businesses are being targeted by cybercriminals – particularly small businesses. Sometimes it’s only a prank – a few inappropriate social media posts to get people reacting. At other times, it can be something far more malicious and can put the details of you, your stuff and your clients in danger. Whatever the extent of the hack, here are the steps that you should take to save your business and prevent it ever happening again.
Notify all your clients
Don’t try to hide what has happened. Yahoo had a cyber-attack back in 2014 that led to at least 500 million of its user accounts being stolen – something the company didn’t reveal until this year. They are now under intense court scrutiny.
Make sure to contact all your clients straight away, letting them know what has happened, that you are doing everything possible to fix it and the precautions that they should take. Depending on how many customers you have, you may need to send it out as a mass email.
Notify your employees
Anyone on your payroll will need to know about the hack, as their details could be under threat too. If you are in a small office this shouldn’t be a problem. However, if you have staff that work remotely, you will have to notify them all too.
Notify the authorities
Now that the embarrassing part is out of the way, get the authorities involved and let them know there has been a breach of information. If you have been struck by ransomware and a hacker is demanding money, a specialist cybercrime branch of the police will be able to notify as what to do. Once the hacker has been dealt with and your business has been safeguarded, they will be able to tell where you need to improve your security. You should book regular checks to prevent another attack.
Prevent future attacks
Hackers are likely to attack the same target twice, especially if they were successful in getting a ransom the first time. Make sure you have heavy-duty internet security installed and that it is up-to-date. Encrypt all your important files and create a backup folder in case one is compromised. To protect against ransomware, you can minimize your downtime with immediate disaster recovery by Infrascale or other related failover software. To protect against email or social media hacking, make sure that you regularly change passwords and that they are difficult to guess.
Seek cyber insurance if you don’t already have it in place. This will make sure that any clients or employees whose details are stolen are compensated in the future.
Create a response plan for if you are ever attacked again. This should speed up the recovery process, so that you can continue with business as usual. If you feel your reputation has been tainted, ensure people that your security has been heightened and that you are now more readily armed against potential attacks.
