No one wants to fall victim to a cyberattack. For business owners, being hacked in today’s modern world can prove to be catastrophic, especially when the business stores a lot of customer information. Effects of a hack, including loss of crucial data, can grind the business to a halt.
Being hacked is a risk that needs to be mitigated. There is a growing number of cyberattacks targeting online businesses today, so it is a good idea to add sufficient security measures to prevent your online business from ever getting hacked.
At the same time, you also need to know how to deal with an attack, and that’s the part we are going to tackle in this article. Here are the steps to take if your online business is hacked.
Assess the Damage
The first thing you want to do is review the situation. You want to know whether information has been stolen or damaged, if any sensitive data (i.e. details about your customers) has been leaked or taken, and whether you can safely resume online business.
Assessing the damage is a complex process. Unfortunately, you don’t have a lot of time to complete the assessment – at least not initially. But you want to understand the extent of the attack and damages caused by it as quickly as possible.
The result of that initial assessment will determine the steps you need to take next.
Stop the Leak
If customer or business information and other data do get stolen, the next thing you want to do is stop the leak. Limit the amount of information that gets taken by plugging the leak as quickly as possible.
This is where knowing how the attack occurred comes in handy. Based on your assessment, you can take immediate step to prevent further data leaks and close the security hole used by the attacker to breach your online business.
Be Transparent
The next thing to do if files and data are stolen is notify key stakeholders. When customers’ personal details are taken, for instance, they also need to know about the attack from you. Being honest and transparent is always the best policy.
The last thing you want is for those stakeholders to find their personal details and sensitive information being exploited before you have the chance to notify them. This will ruin the credibility of your online business completely.
Deal with Recovery
Recovery is the last part of the equation. Thanks to new technologies, service providers like Secure Data Recovery can restore virtually any data from a wide range of sources. It is good to have a comprehensive backup of your online business too.
Naturally, you can jump straight to recovery when no information gets stolen. As long as you maintain an up-to-date backup of your data, you should be able to get your online business back up and running in a matter of minutes.
As mentioned earlier, dealing with an attack is something no-one wants to do. So, you should take steps to prevent a hack from affecting your business. In the event of a hacking, however, these steps are the ones to take to recover quickly.
