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Can Your Small Business Recover from a Cyberattack?

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The novel coronavirus forced businesses of all sizes to make significant adjustments. Companies had to observe physical distancing rules or lockdown orders to survive and adopted remote working procedures. 

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Credit: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Meanwhile, sophisticated cybercriminals saw an opportunity in the new normal and worked smarter instead of harder. They knew that remote staff were untrained and unequipped to manage the following cybersecurity threats:

  • Ransomware attacks
  • Phishing attacks
  • Exploits
  • Spyware attacks
  • Trojan horse attacks
  • Malspam
  • And more

With the average American company facing over $200,000 in recovery costs, many businesses couldn’t afford to keep their doors open. They were already facing financial strain due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a dangerous cybersecurity attack was the final nail in the coffin. 

In reaction, small and medium-sized businesses began to implement sophisticated endpoint detection and response software designed to remediate all types of malware threats and even protect employees who used their own devices.

Here are some features of a complete endpoint detection and response system:

  • It uses machine learning to recognize patterns and apply them to endpoint protection.
  • It uses behavioural analysis to identify suspicious behaviour and even stop “zero-day” unknown threats.
  • It draws on an exhaustive signature database to stop known threats.
  • It prevents threat actors from exploiting software vulnerabilities. 
  • It offers cloud-based centralized management for easy deployment, management, and scalability.
  • It works fast to stop malware payload delivery.
  • It uses a single agent architecture to avoid bloat and run smoothly.
  • It rolls back the damage done by attacks by restoring encrypted or deleted files.

Aside from a top endpoint detection and response system, organizations took the following steps to recover from a cyberattack:

1. Financial Security

Most businesses realized that even the best cybersecurity tools aren’t impenetrable. That’s why they took a layered approach to online security to slow down attacks and minimize the impact on their operations. They also used secure frameworks like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) to enhance financial security. Additionally, they created a budget to prepare for damage from a breach. 

2. Long-term Backups of Critical Data: 

Businesses began performing regular encrypted backups of company data from computers, smartphones, and tablets after scanning for malware. All sorts of data was backed up, including documents, spreadsheets, customer relationship management (CRM) information, financials, product design specifics, operational processes, and even system logs. 

While some businesses backed up data on secure and encrypted hard drives locked offsite, others use dependable on-the-cloud services to create copies of their critical information. 

3. Short-term Backups of Operational Data

Not only did organizations create long-term backups, but they also created incremental weekly backups of data for faster recovery from cyberattacks. Their data was backed up on multiple sites for easier access and protection. 

4. Cybersecurity Insurance 

A data breach can be costly in multiple ways. In addition to losing access to priceless data, a company may have to pay experts to help them identify the scope of the damage. Additionally, they may face legal costs from a regulatory body, customers, etc. For these reasons and more, businesses began investing in cybersecurity insurance. 

In the digital age, online attacks on organizations are almost inevitable. The only choice is to boost preparedness to one step ahead of threat actors. 

 

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