Hard times create strong people, and strong people create good businesses. The entrepreneurial world is filled with challenges, and you must be ready for everything. Your competition is on the lookout for new strategies to steal your clients. Inflation is rampaging, and prices are increasing everywhere. What’s more, hackers are targeting big and small businesses, meaning that no one is safe.

You might be a part of a business that hasn’t been breached, but that doesn’t mean the scenario will never happen. You plan, research the market, and deploy solutions to combat your competitors. To combat inflation, you find innovative ways to cut costs or offer higher prices. When it comes to cyberattacks, you need to prepare for the fallout, the damages, and the response directed toward your community.

Many businesses make the mistake of trying to cover up that they’ve been attacked. Everyone knows that perfect security doesn’t exist in this modern world. We can forgive a company when it’s completely honest and transparent. How you respond and act in a crisis determines the future of your operations. Let’s look at some of the best things to say and do.

How would you behave in this situation?

Imagine that you’re the CEO of a company with 500 employees. Suddenly, a manager rushes into your office and tells you that your customers’ entire database of emails, passwords, and credit card numbers has been compromised, and a cyberattack is responsible for it.

Immediately, you will feel your heart sink into your chest and beat violently. A cold sweat will overtake you while you try to think of what to do next.

In times of panic, your mind is your worst enemy. It works on a fight or flight response, and you might do something that you’ll regret. That’s why it’s crucial to plan for the situation beforehand. If you don’t have a plan, it’s like you’re setting yourself up for failure, or in this case, a troublesome response.

What should you do?

The first thing you should do is to take a deep breath and call law enforcement. If you live in a large city with a massive population, then your local office will do. But depending on the severity of the situation, you might want to call an organization similar to the FBI. As soon as you report the incident to the police, it’s time to look at what happened, how it happened, and what you can do to prevent it.

Hiring a data forensics team is often the best option in case you don’t have an in-house team of cybersecurity experts. These professionals will analyze the breach, look for evidence, and tell you what to do regarding the cybersecurity breach.

While the wound is fresh, talk to the employees who were the first to discover the cyberattack. How did they notice? When did it happen? The answers to these questions will help you document everything, and you can use that information to update the forensics team when they arrive.

After the fire blows out and clears, it’s time to notify everyone who was affected by the incident. That includes organizations and individuals. You must tell your clients, customers, bank, credit bureau, and financial partners. They should proceed with freezing their compromised accounts and make new ones.

Finally, provide as much information as possible in your press release. Don’t hide the incident, and offer to correct your mistake. This could be monitoring the credit of all those affected by the breach. Be clear, concise, and honest. That’s the only way to keep moving forward.

How to prevent it from happening again?

Usually, the reason why a breach or cyberattack succeeds is due to human error. Either you or some of your employees made a small security mistake that allowed a hacker to gain control over your database or infiltrate the system.

No matter the case, you can’t rewind time. Instead of treating yourself or your employee as responsible for a million-dollar loss, try thinking of the situation as training. Imagine that you spent a million dollars training for that breach never to happen again.

Additionally, double down on education and install antivirus and VPN software on each device, unless you already have one. Of course, you should always get a paid version instead of a free one. An antivirus scans your device for malware, spyware, and ransomware to ensure your device is safe.

A VPN, on the other hand, helps you stay anonymous online and makes devices untraceable. VPNs are constantly trying to stay one step ahead of hackers, which is why NordVPN released its Threat Protection features. You can read more in this NordVPN review.

They block trackers and ads, scan websites before you visit them, and check files for malware before downloading. Even if something passes through this first line of defense, the antivirus will take care of it.

The combination of antivirus plus VPN is a double safety net to protect your company in the future and ensure a breach never happens again.