Introduction
The given report concerns a security breach that occurred on the 11th of January, 2023. The data breach was caused by a virus contained in an email sent by the fraudulent source to the corporate account of a junior employee. After the email was accepted by the employee, an attack on the system was carried out, which gave the hackers access to the database. The attack lasted for fifteen minutes and was noticed shortly. The issue was corrected within an hour following the attack. Thirty clients were affected by the data breach, with the corrupted information being credit card numbers and PINs.
Discussion
The steps the company will immediately take involve informing the clients of the security breach and the actions they will need to take. Each customer will receive an email with a list of actions that can lessen the likelihood that their personal information is being exploited. In situations like these, state regulations, the extent of the breach, the sort of information obtained, the risk of abuse, and the possible harm if the data is exploited should be considered (Federal Trade Commission, n.d.). The clients will be advised to occasionally check their bank accounts and reports to see whether there are suspicious transactions. Moreover, each customer should be notified about the necessity of password and PIN changes in case of a data breach (Devjani & Rukhsan, 2020). In order to avoid any other issues, the affected customers will be notified regarding changing similar passwords on other platforms.
The additional steps involve contacting government authorities and hiring an independent forensic and cyber security team to halt further corruption of data. It is the obligation of the company to report the incident to the authorities within the first days, depending on the state where the cyber attack took place (Federal Trade Commission, n.d.). Among the details that should be reported are the type of data breach, the number of affected individuals, the data that was obtained, and the possibility of identity theft. As for the forensic and cyber security teams, such independent parties will identify the source and scope of data corruption.
Upon contacting government authorities and clients, it is necessary to contact employees and share the expected actions. Every employee will receive an email that will explain the incident. Employees will be expected to change their corporate accounts’ passwords. A crisis group will then be formed to address the issues at hand, involving HR, legal, customer support, and IT representatives (Ryder & Madhavan, 2019). The responsibilities of HR will be answering the questions of employees, the IT employees will identify the technological aspect and scope of the issue. The customer support and legal team will be expected to contact the affected client base and evaluate the condition of the company from the perspective of law, respectively.
In order to prevent similar incidents in the future, a comprehensive training plan is vital to educate the employees on how to both prevent data breaches and actions to take when a data breach occurs. First, it is necessary to advise current employees not to use any public Wi-Fi, only use corporate Internet services, and not share corporate account information to minimize risks of data corruption. Moreover, training should involve the common ways of how data breaches occur, such as by accepting emails, downloading files, or using links from unknown sources (Hartley, 2019). The managers who will hold training sessions will hand out the brochures with possible signs of cyber security risks and advise creating more robust passwords.
Conclusion
Finally, related employee expectations will be monitored by the crisis team representatives, paying attention to the change of passwords and compliance with the crisis program. In order to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future, certain aspects should be emphasized. Executives will have to rearrange the system regarding which kind of data each class of employees has access to. The conditions for sharing certain types of sensitive information should be established. The crisis team will additionally be expected to “table virtual scenarios to ensure a plan is executed properly” (Cole & Verbinnen, 2022). Moreover, drill situations will need to be considered when the employees are tested upon receiving training. This will help the senior managers understand whether there are any weaknesses in the organization.
References
Cole, T. A. & Verbinnen, P. (2022). Collaborative crisis management: Prepare, execute, recover, repeat. University of Chicago Press.
Devjani, S. & Rukhsan, A. (2020). Privacy concerns surrounding personal information sharing on health and fitness mobile apps. IGI Global.
Federal Trade Commission. (n.d.). Data breach response: A guide for business. Web.
Hartley, K. (2019). Communicate in a crisis: Understand, engage and influence consumer behaviour to maximize brand trust. Kogan Page Publishers.
Ryder, R. D. & Madhavan, A. (2019). Cyber crisis management. Bloomsbury Publishing.