Recovering from a cyber attack requires that organizations adopt a strategic approach supported by coordinated efforts from all departments. Unfortunately, no organization is immune from a cyberattack. You can fall victim even with the best security measures in place. The aftermath of a cybersecurity attack requires swift and effective actions to minimize damage and prevent future attacks; you can follow these steps for a simpler recovery:
1. Containment
Containment is the first and most important step when dealing with a cyber incident. Containing the attack immediately helps prevent further spread and damage to your network systems. You should do the following during containment:
- Isolation: Isolate or separate the affected networks or systems immediately. This might mean disconnecting all compromised systems from your active network or disabling affected accounts. You should also segment network traffic to control the spread.
- Shut down services: Consider shutting down some services temporarily if you suspect they have been compromised. Doing this prevents malicious persons from conducting further activities or accessing sensitive information.
- Deploy firewalls: Configure your firewalls immediately to block malicious traffic. Update the intrusion prevention system to align with the most recent threat intelligence. This requires that you have a reliable digital risk protection solution for your network and systems.
- Monitor: Monitor your systems logs, network traffic, and telemetry data continuously to identify any signs of suspicious activity. Put your intrusion detection and security information systems to work.
- Implement access controls: Restricting access to your network and data during this critical period is important. You should only grant access to authorized personnel. This might mean changing passwords, disabling remote access, and adopting tighter access controls.
Time is of great essence during this step. The faster you contain the attack, the better the outcome. You should consider engaging external cybersecurity experts and incident response teams to boost your containment efforts, especially if the attack is sophisticated or you have limited internal resources.
2. Assessment
The next step after containment in the aftermath of a cyberattack is assessment. This involves evaluating your network security systems to determine the extent of the damage. Assessment also helps identify remaining vulnerabilities and plan the best next course of action. Your assessment should begin with an impact analysis. This means evaluating the impact of the cyber incident on your individual or business data and systems. Identify all the systems that were compromised, the amount of data that was accessed, and how the incident has affected your business continuity.
Impact analysis goes hand in hand with vulnerability analysis. Find out the vulnerabilities exploited or how the cyber criminals gained access to your systems. This requires that you conduct an extensive analysis of your network systems and present security controls to identify loopholes that gave entry.
If the hacker used malware to execute the attack, analyze the malware thoroughly to understand all its functionalities and the potential impact on your systems. In most cases, you may have to reverse engineer the malware to gain valuable insights about its capabilities. Insights from the assessment data can help you attribute the attack to a specific known threat actor or group. This might be through the attack pattern or the type of infrastructure used. While accurate attribution may prove challenging, knowing who attacked your network system is important as it guides response efforts. It also helps in planning future cyber defense strategies.
3. Communication
Clear communication is very important after a cyberattack. This ensures transparency and coordinated efforts towards recovery. You should begin by strengthening internal communication with your teams. Keep all your internal stakeholders, especially the IT department, executives, and relevant employees informed about the cyberattack.
You should also notify your customers and partners about the attack. As such, appoint a designated person who will handle external communication. The person should be properly trained and equipped to respond to media or customer questions and alleviate worries.
Your communications to the customers should be transparent. Inform them about the nature and extent of the attack, especially if it affected their data. Similarly, communicate the potential risks they face and the measures your team are putting in place to mitigate the damage.
That aside, you should comply with data safety regulations by notifying the relevant authorities of the cyber incident. This is especially important if the attack affected personal data. Consult your legal team to ensure that you follow all applicable data laws and regulations.
4. Forensics
Forensics is an important recovery step after suffering a cybersecurity incident. Here, you should focus on understanding the key details of the cyber incident. This includes identifying the tactics and techniques used by attackers and gathering all the possible evidence for legal actions.
Collecting evidence should be your first step when conducting digital forensics. This involves capturing network traffic or creating forensic pictures of the compromised devices. You should also preserve data logs as they may lead you to the source of the attack.
You should engage a forensic analyst to help you reconstruct the timeline of the cyberattack. Cyber analysts are experts in analyzing event logs, time taps, and other information left behind by the attackers. Having a timeline is important as it helps you understand the sequence of events leading up to the attack.
In situations where malware was used, a forensic analyst will extensively investigate the malware. Conducting a malware analysis helps understand its functionality and impact on your network. Knowing the malware capabilities and control infrastructure is important for recovery.
5. Remediation
Remediation is the last step, which primarily involves addressing the weakness that leads to an attack. This step revolves around implementing cybersecurity measures that prevent or mitigate future incidences. Remediation efforts also restore the affected data and systems to a secure state.
There’s a lot that goes on during remediation. For instance, patch management involves applying patches to software vulnerabilities that allowed the attack. Cybersecurity experts may also suggest network segmentation to minimize the attack surface and privilege management to reduce the risk posed by unauthorized access.
Your IT team may also suggest improving endpoint security to protect your network and data against malware and data exhilaration. A reliable antivirus and other endpoint protection systems help detect and block malicious activities.
Endnote
Recovering fully from a cyberattack is challenging and may take some time. However, it requires extensive diligence and collaboration with relevant teams. Since your business or organization isn’t immune, you should have a proactive approach to recovery to minimize the impact of cyberattacks. You should also prioritize cybersecurity resilience to ensure business continuity.
