As a small business, it is important to have a plan in place that allows you to act strategically and swiftly when a cybersecurity incident occurs, like data loss or service outage that threatens daily work.  An Incident Response Plan is a written set of instructions to help your staff detect a security breach, know how to respond to it, and what protocols to follow. The plan should encompass different types of cybercrime that could happen and what to do in each scenario. The plan may also include a list of personnel with their respective responsibilities. In addition to IT staff, the list of personnel may include legal, human resources, and public relations members.

There are generally six factors that will impact an Incident Response Plan:

• Preparation: Performing a risk assessment to prepare for potential cybercrimes
• Identification: Identifying the significance of the problem
• Containment: Isolating the problem so it doesn’t affect anything else
• Eradication: Upgrades and replacements
• Recovery: Restoring data and normal services
• Review: Lessons learned on how to prevent the problem from happening again

By developing an Incident Response Plan, you are taking proactive steps to protect your company and your customers’ data, maintain a healthy reputation in the community, and avoid having to pay large amounts of money in the case of a ransomware attack.  With cyberattacks up over 300% since the onset of COVID-19, having a plan allows you to have peace of mind knowing that a strategy is in place for keeping the business running in the event of a breach.

Many small businesses often don’t have the staff and expertise to come up with and maintain an Incident Response Plan. ICC can help you understand and put a comprehensive plan together so you can rest assured knowing you are prepared. ICC can also play a critical role in the implementation of the plan, technology, and any future troubleshooting.

For more information, or to get started, call ICC at 970.821.8592 or visit our website at iccusa.net.