ESET: As modern business is increasingly based on digital technology, and cybercrime is constantly on the increase, corporate data protection is all the more important.
Denise Giusto Bilic, her Security Researcher ESET, advises companies and organizations that have been attacked, to take five key steps in order to protect their important resources.
Step 1: Determine the range of infection.
Companies that have been attacked usually rely on their intuition to assess the situation rather than analyzing the problem. If the company has invested in the development of robust Emergency Management Systems, it is possible to quickly gather data that will lead to credible assessments to investigate the first important questions: what systems have been violated and in what way? Is the infection confined to only one part of the network? Has leaked data? Are we talking about corporate data or personal data about employees and / or clients?
Step 2: Ensure business continuity.
In the event of leakage of information likely to endanger workers or customers, they must in principle be informed and warned. If the company has backed up its records, and already has an action plan, it can immediately return to its regular customer service rates.
Step 3: Limit the infection.
Initially, the equipment and / or part of the network that has been compromised should be isolated. If the communications used for the attack are found to be encrypted, the keys should be located with the help of reverse engineering techniques, while if the communication takes place in non-confidential protocols such as HTTP, the detection of the commands used by the attacker it will be easier. In both cases, the goal is to create rules for the firewall to quickly create a first line of defense. Whether the company has invested in preventive detection and threat detection mechanisms, and uses an integrated security solution, will determine its ability to respond to this critical phase.
Step 4: Eliminate infection and attack.
Removing malware is a complicated process. The first step involves a detailed analysis of the code to understand how it works, something antivirus solutions do automatically, saving valuable time in the response process. It is important to remove any malicious remnants and remove the vulnerability from which the attack took place, to strengthen the process of analyzing packets transmitted over the network, to review firewall settings, to change corporate network passwords and to update the keys. At this point, it is worthwhile to determine whether the infection was the result of simple carelessness or part of a targeted series of attacks.
Step 5: Learn from any errors.
An in-depth investigation of what happened may be a reason to improve the company's internal processes. Removing any vulnerabilities, the existence of which was previously unknown, is an opportunity to identify other vulnerabilities and strengthen defense. There will also be elements of the system design that need to be strengthened, and the weak points found in current defense will be discovered to design a stronger one.
