Companies may face a data breach at some point and deal with the costly consequences. But, they can mitigate the possible costs and damages by knowing the steps they should take when a breach takes place. These include the following:

Isolate the Network

When a data breach happens, its spread should be stopped by taking the network offline and isolating the affected servers. Credentials for vital accounts and servers must be changed. Company owners can hire a specialist to assist in the investigation, evaluation, and determination of the next steps.

Evaluate How the Breach Affects Your Company

Determine which information has been compromised whether that information can be retrieved. Also, check if some uncompromised backup can be access to restore your systems. It’s important to evaluate your losses and security concerns to establish the effects of the attack on your company and determine the next steps in the restoration process.

Investigate How the Attack Was Successful

You must find out how the breach took place to know the security concerns you must address. Surveys show that the main cause of data loss is human error. Opening a phishing email, plugging a corrupted USB into the network, and downloading a corrupt file are common errors that can result in successful attacks. But, there are other ways a breach can take place. For instance, your IT team might be behind on important patching or you may still be running old software. To prevent future attacks, you must understand how previous attacks were successful.

Learn from the Experience

After learning about the cause of the breach, leverage such information to improve your systems and establish a more secure network. If the breach resulted from human error, focus on minimizing the possibility of such incidents in the future. Your solutions can take include employee training, process automation, and the introduction of new software to protect the network when an error is made. You may need to assess the current technologies your company has in place and invest in more up-to-date software to make sure you are getting maximum protection.

Furthermore, you may want to consider hiring a service provider to manage your security. Hiring their services put your security in the hands of experts and make sure you use the best technologies. Also, this ensures somebody is monitoring your network round-the-clock for issues.

As you learn from previous breaches, consider the underlying causes of the breach. How huge is your IT budget? How many employees do you have on your IT team? Be realistic and allocate enough resources to properly protect your company.