Incident response plans are procedures set in place by company policies to react to, remediate, and resolve cybersecurity incidents. The best incident response plans will ensure a company is more resilient to attacks they have already seen in the past and more prepared for similar attacks that may come in the future. With a strong incident response plan, SMBs can minimize the damage done by successful attacks, prevent some attacks all together, and ensure business continuity so that as little operating time is lost as possible. A good incident response plan does require adequate planning, though, so here are some essentials every SMB needs!
Threat Identification
Understanding how your small or medium business can prepare for and identify threats is the first step in reliable incident response plans. Early threat assessments can help bring weak points in the network’s cybersecurity defenses to light, which can help spur targeted response plans involving those weaker areas. When a threat does come, SMBs shouldn’t just rely on their cybersecurity solutions to identify potential attacks. Employees must be trained to identify suspicious activity on the network and know how to report it to IT quickly. This, combined with security solutions will ensure threats are identified promptly when they come around.
Prevention and Remediation
The prevention and remediation steps of an incident response plan may rely heavily on cybersecurity tools implemented in the network. For example, endpoint protection and network detection and response tools can help immediately identify suspicious activity and isolate endpoints or devices that have been compromised. These tools can then provide informative alerts so that your IT team or IT consultant has all the information needed to take quick and decisive action. SMBs should work with an IT consultant to determine the kinds of cybersecurity services they need to prepare for threats in their industry. DNS filtering, endpoint protection, and other security tools can help patch up gaps in network security, if your company needs it.
Recovery and Damage Control
Recovery and damage control may be quick if a company’s cybersecurity tools are effective at stopping a threat early. This step may simply be implementing new company policies to help bring awareness to a social engineering attack, using a new security tool to prevent an unexpected attack, or restoring well-kept backups to get the business running again. No matter the resolution, after every incident, the events of the attack should be understood and thoroughly analyzed so that it is clear how the attack happened and what steps can be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future. Companies that cannot determine an adequate response to an attack should reach out to a trusted IT consultant for insight.
Summary
Incident response plans are an essential element to any business’ cybersecurity, and if your SMB doesn’t have one, then it may only take one significant cybersecurity event to grind your business to a halt. No matter its size, every SMB should develop incident response plans that can scale with the company as it grows. If your company needs to begin implementing incident response plans, then our team is here to work with you! Robinett Consulting believes even the smallest of businesses deserve the same cybersecurity tools as big companies, so we pride ourselves on bringing you the cybersecurity resources you need at small business prices!
