A data breach report is a valuable tool. Although it’s easy to view this data as just a mark of failure, it presents incomparable opportunities to strengthen your security, improve business practices, and prevent a future breach. However, you need to know what you’re looking for, before gathering as much information as possible.
Turning Data Security Breach Reporting into Actionable Information
A data breach report is full of important information that can help you recover from a data breach. It also helps you prevent breaches in the future. Use this report to put your business under a microscope. Look for points where your system or employees might have taken action to prevent the breach. Breaks in the protocol or unapproved work habits are especially important. By using the report to ferret these out, you’re free to investigate further to see exactly how widespread these issues are.
Naturally, you should also use the report to examine how the criminal entered your system and what they wanted to steal. To get the most out of the data breach report, you will need to subject it to professional analysis. If you have any data security analysis software, your data breach investigations report is the perfect data set. Once you have as much data as you can glean from the report, compare the revealed weaknesses to your current system. Likely, the weakened elements will still be shut down after the initial attack. By applying what you’ve learned from data security breach reporting, however, you can get that part of your system up and running again quickly.
Going Beyond the Report
Applying what you learn from your data breach report isn’t a two-step process. While there should be immediate changes you can make based on the report, there is much more insight available. However, that insight takes more time and effort to apply to your data security system and general business practices.
Penalizing any employees who were involved in the breach is a matter of business protocol. Firing them, however, shouldn’t be the end of the process. Examine their relationship with your business, signs that they might not have taken their jobs seriously enough, etc. Prior write-ups and performance reviews are a great place to start. Interview employees who perform similar roles. You want to see if they have adequate training to know what went wrong or what the responsible parties failed to do to prevent the breach. Apply this same level of scrutiny to managers, department heads, and your system itself. Did the system fail the employee using it? Could additional training or clearer consequences for failure to follow set procedures improve security in the future? These questions are a great place to start. The more you dig, the more detailed questions you’ll formulate.
A breach represents a horrible loss. That makes it even more important to gain as much as possible from the report. Don’t let the disaster repeat itself. Arm yourself with the facts and prepare to make some changes.
