The best security system in the world can be hacked. It is a terrifying fact that cannot be avoided today. Facebook has been hacked, which we all remember. Governments around the world have been hacked (sadly). Individuals have been hacked. If a multi-billion dollar corporation and the world’s leaders can be impacted, anyone can. The best way to protect yourself is by not making yourself an easy target. If you are a prime target, then the best way to protect yourself is to hire the best of the best to test your systems and improve them.
You can do a lot, but at the end of the day, there is no guarantee of full security. However, that does not mean you should not try to protect yourself. In fact, it is a must.That is why when a data breach happens in your company you need to do more than just try to minimize data loss. You need to run damage control within your employee teams as well. Here’s how you can do just that.
Don’t Place Security Breach Blame
One of the biggest reasons why your employees might turn against you or decide to quit is because you take the frustration of the breach out on them. It doesn’t matter if 82% of incidents are due to your staff. Don’t blame them and especially don’t blame your IT department. In most cases, your employees will be innocent for everything except accidentally clicking on the wrong link or downloading an extension that was either infected or hacked into.
What you should do, however, is ensure everyone is educated to the best of their ability. This means enrolling your staff in training sessions so that they know what to look out for but also what to do if a breach were to happen. It is all well and good trying to evade such security issues, but what do you do once one happens? That is the true question.
The issue is particularly important if you have been hit with a ransomware attack. You can be extorted for days or even weeks because of someone else’s mistake, but putting the blame on that mistake will only fracture your team and cause your employees to distrust and dislike you.
Be Honest About the Extent of the Breach
Another step you need to take is to be honest. Be honest both to your customers and to your employees about the extent of the breach. Hiding it does not help anyone because the damage has already been done, and only when your team has all the information can you start to work to minimize damage. Most likely their personal information has been stolen, too, and therefore they need to take measures to reduce risk to their personal lives.
Give Your Employees (and Customers) Steps to Follow
If you have personal information on them, advise your employees to change their security question answers on main accounts. If you have their credit card data for any reason, advise them to cancel those cards immediately, and so on.
Go Through What Happened
The best way to reduce the risk of another attack happening is to go through and train your employees on both what happened and what still could happen. Have them read up on ransomware and other similar attacks on informative sites like McAfee, go through steps with them on how they can personally secure their own devices against future attacks, and work together on becoming a better company.
Improve Security
Prevention is your first defense. Your last defense is the security measures you put into place. This could mean investing in anti-virus software, or it could mean hiring white hat hackers to test your system and suggest how it could be improved in the future. The key is to be pro-active.
Source: https://www.mikegingerich.com/blog/how-to-keep-your-employees-on-your-side-when-breaches-happen/
