No one likes to be alerted that their company network has recently been breached. The thought of sensitive customer and private corporate data being leaked all over the Internet creates a situation where panic seems inevitable. However, if a company plans ahead and has the right people in place, such a breach will be properly contained. This will ensure that as little damage is done as can be possibly prevented. To take control of the situation, here are six professionals your company needs to have on hand to isolate and handle the problem.
Product Consultant
Since small and large corporations alike use platforms and software packages sold by particular vendors, it may be necessary to hire a product consultant to help you isolate the source of a breach. A product consultant will have expert knowledge as to how a platform or piece of software works, including intimate insights into weaknesses and often not-so-obvious vulnerabilities. They will also know how to work with vendors to ensure the best course of action to shore up any vulnerabilities needing to be addressed.
Incident Response Plan Coordinator
There is a lot of talk today about the need for an incident response plan coordinator to help ensure that a network breach is not followed up by an overly sluggish response. Hackers attack rapidly. It only stands to reason that someone on your staff should be equally prepared to respond equally fast to an external attacker. This individual not only needs to be able to quickly assess how far an attacker got into your system, but they also need to have the good sense to know if getting the authorities involved is warranted as well. This person should be methodical and cool-headed enough to have the capacity to maintain control of the breach at every phase of execution of the response plan.
Public Relations Personnel
A major breach will often require someone to smooth things over with the media and your consumers afterward. Especially in situations where a data breach will potentially compromise sensitive customer data, your customers want to know immediately if they are at any sort of significant risk. Having the right person on your public relations team who has the experience to handle the media and the tough questions is key to securing your company’s reputation. Failure to have such an individual in place to perform this delicate task could potentially sink your business.
Network Security Professional
When your business’s network gets hacked, this is not the time to give your 16-year-old nephew a quick call for help. Rather, you are in serious need of a network security professional. Many such individuals are typically certified, such as with a CCNA network security professional who has a background in Cisco standards, industry-related policies and the latest regulation. Such an individual will have the insight to know how to best contain your company’s sensitive data and prevent the breach from being too major of a compromise to your system. Any IT support service is better than none, but someone with a security background is even better.
A Breach Coach
According to Govirtual-IT.com, a breach coach is a lawyer who enters the scene once a breach happens with your company’s network. Their job is to help you to assess the legal implications of what has transpired. As a result of a major data breach, it is possible that various state and federal regulations were breached as well, raising sticky legal questions along the way for your company and its owner. If the hacker is caught, the breach coach will also be able to aid your company in the development of a formal case against the cyber intruder.
A Cryptography Expert
Because standard encryption software is available to anyone with a wallet, it is sometimes a great idea to have someone on staff who has the skills to encrypt your company’s data with unconventional methods. When a company can quickly throw up a wall of brand new encryption to secure their data in the midst of a breach, this helps to mitigate an ongoing data leak problem. Even if a hacker gets a hold of sensitive data on a second pass, it forces the hacker to be faced with the additional task of decrypting the data.
After a data breach has occurred, there is room for a number of professionals to work on your company’s network to bring it back under your control. Isolating the breach, determining if the hacker is still active on your system and preventing further attacks from digging deeper into your network are all priorities needing to be addressed in a timely fashion. With careful planning and a solid response team in place, your company will be able to keep its sensitive data intact and far outside the hands of a data thief.