There’s a misconception that only big businesses and government agencies need to concern themselves with cyberattacks. Not only is this idea misguided, but it’s also contributing to a rising spate of attacks against small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In New Zealand, organisations of all sizes and industries are now getting caught up in a wave of cybercrime that has been fuelled by a combination of misplaced priorities and the availability of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools that have enabled malicious actors to dramatically ramp up their attacks.
With the risk of data breaches now higher than ever, having an effective incident response plan has never been more necessary. Integrating customised incident response solutions into your business removes delays during the critical first few hours of a cyberattack, mitigating damage and enabling business to continue as usual. You’ll enjoy these benefits when you have cybersecurity experts like the people at Network Edge advise you on your incident response plan:
Cyberattacks can halt operations, not just through the direct tampering of business systems but also through confused responses. Attacks on unprepared organisations often lead to unproductive finger-pointing and delays that damage the business’s reputation—all while also doing nothing to resolve the issues at hand. This inevitably leads to revenue losses and permanent reputational damage soon after a cyberattack.
A well-prepared incident response speeds up your cyberattack responses, allowing your team to instantly isolate affected systems and restore backups rather than waste time debating what has to be done. Such preparedness can significantly reduce the data, branding, and financial impacts of an attack and ensure your business’s continuity.
Incident response plans will always include a backup and disaster recovery strategy to prevent total losses in case of a successful cyberattack. These plans should include regularly scheduled backups as well as strategies that keep critical business data intact. These enable your system to continue serving key users even as your team restores everyone’s data.
Without an effective response, cyberattacks can easily spread across your company’s network, increasing potential losses. A good response plan will help your IT team execute workable containment to prevent further infiltration, keeping losses to an absolute minimum.
A well-executed response plan reassures customers, partners, and other stakeholders that your business is serious about cybersecurity. As more stakeholders become aware of the value of their own data, they’re also going to be keenly aware of what it is you’re doing (or not doing) to maintain everyone’s security. Even if you don’t end up needing it, having a go-to plan will enable you to maintain everyone’s trust, well into an increasingly uncertain future.
It’s not just regular people who are paying attention to your business’s security posture. Various government and industry regulators are now tightening their controls in response to the global rise in cybercrime.
Setting up an incident response plan makes it that much easier to keep pace with your business’s expanding compliance requirements. These may include NZ-specific data protection regulations such as the Privacy Act of 2020 as well as other regulations mandated by relevant foreign governments and standards organisations. Discuss your requirements with trusted cybersecurity professionals so that you can have a plan that covers all your domestic and overseas compliance areas.
Human error, ignorance of cybersecurity, and insider attacks all remain serious threats to organisations of all sizes. A realistic incident response plan will help companies better account for these factors, allowing them to emphasise employee training on recognising phishing attempts, social engineering scams, and other common human-focused cyber threats. Plans can also include cybersecurity drills to gauge the actual readiness of employees in a real-world attack scenario.
Lastly, effective incident response plans are not a one-time thing. Given that malicious actors are constantly innovating, businesses should stay ahead of the latest threats. Having a playbook gives your business a basis from which to evolve its cybersecurity, enabling it to update its approach based on the most likely threats.
As technology innovations trickle down to more users, we can expect typical cyber threats to become much more sophisticated than they are today. Even now, hackers and other malicious actors are constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to their attacks, deploying advanced AI and a deeper knowledge of business systems than those that came before them.
Knowing all this, you must begin planning your business’s standard incident response as soon as possible. Implementing a strong incident response plan will help your business avoid the delays and the finger-pointing that so often prevent a rational, productive response to data breaches. With an IRP, you can guarantee continuity in the face of increasingly challenging business environments.
The sooner you act, the better prepared your business will be to withstand today’s cyber threats. Contact the experienced network security experts at Network Edge to ensure your first response plan is a credible one.
