All Points Mobile Shredding Blog

What to do when your business suffers a data breach

Critical steps to take

Once a data breach has occurred it’s impossible to undo. The thought of your organization’s confidential information in the hands of hackers or floating out there in cyberspace is more than unsettling. And it can sometimes be the cause for great difficulties-especially if you’re a small business owner. And since events like these have happened to mega organizations like Target, Chase and Home Depot, just to name a few, it is a clear and present danger to every business operating today. That being said, if you take the right steps, you may be able to ensure it does not happen again and salvage your business. Take a look:

Step one: Research and discover

When a breach happens, no matter what kind or how impactful it is, the first step is to find out what information has been breached and how many people or accounts have been affected. As a business owner, you will want to research where the leak may have come from or assign a staff member or a create a team to trace the origin.

Step two: Inform

As difficult as it is, you must promptly notify all those affected by the breach. Doing so lets your customers, vendors and/or affiliates know that you’re taking action and not attempting to cover up the situation, which will protect your company’s reputation. It’s recommended to send a written notice to each and every person who’s been impacted and include information about your plans for rectifying the situation.

Step three: Contain the breach

A priority now is to make sure that you’ve contained the breach and cut off all avenues for additional data to be hacked. It may require rerouting your network and in most cases creating a back up and restoration of your files to secure storage.

Step four: Move forward with a new plan

After you’ve taken the actions necessary to recover from the breach, it’s important to take a fresh look at your data storage, your network security protocols and which staff members have access to sensitive information. If necessary, hire an outside organization that specializes in information security to assist you in rebuilding your network security plan.

In today’s digital universe it’s more important that ever to stay on top of your company’s confidential information. To avoid being vulnerable or suffering another breach, make sure you have a regular schedule of data destruction and a highly secure storage solution. Work with a certified and trusted provider for shredding old documents and hard-drive destruction and make sure your entire team is trained on how to store, when to recycle and when and how to dispose of documents you no longer need.

Talk to us at All Points Mobile Shredding to create a customized shredding and data destruction solution for your business. We will work with you to ensure that you are protected and that your company’s data is safe. Give us a call at (800) 696-8483 or fill out our online quote request form.

Dawn Connelly

Dawn is the vice president of All Points Mobile Shredding. All Points Mobile Shredding is a family-owned and operated on-site document destruction company that has been serving the Treasure Coast, Palm Beaches, and surrounding areas since 1994.

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