As ransomware attacks increase, more businesses are at risk. Before an emergency, it is recommended that team leaders communicate and that participants practice what-if scenarios with business operations in mind. Provide team members with off-hours contact information in case of an incident during a holiday or outside normal working hours.

Six Sigma

A continuous improvement methodology based on Six Sigma principles, Sigma Black Belt defines, measures, analyzes, improves, and controls processes. The  ESSA examines how businesses can effectively combine

• Elements
• eliminate defects
• improve efficiency
• effectiveness.

Sigma Black Belt ensures that there is a clear cycle understanding of the methodology and its principles throughout the organization. It may involve training and education on Sigma Black Belt to employees at all levels and establishing a culture of continuous improvement that supports the adoption of the methodology. Effective implementation is selecting and training a team of Sigma Blackbelts who will lead improvement projects within the organization. These individuals should have the necessary skills and expertise to identify and analyze process defects and implement solutions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of those processes.

Lastly, the Sigma Black Belt methodology should be used to evaluate its effectiveness by establishing a robust system for tracking and measuring improvement projects. We may need to set clear goals and targets and track key metrics to achieve this. To achieve continuous improvement goals, organizaBeforeed to establish these systems and track progress.

Source:

What Is Six Sigma?

Video:

Six Sigma Full Course in 7 Hours | Six Sigma Green Belt Training | Six Sigma Training | Simplilearn

Document the risks 

Small business risks could include many events: natural disasters, a vendor or business partner shutting down, a ransomware attack, or simply an unfortunate user error. 

Here is where the whole team can brainstorm

• What if a supplier goes out of business? 
• What if a disgruntled employee deletes a bunch of data before walking out the door? 
• What if our office closed after a hurricane?
• What if organizations get ransomware?
• What do we have to do to prevent advanced cyber-attacks?

Determine the most critical data, technology, and tools

Each department has data and systems they need to function. For example, accounting needs access to payroll data; developers need their code repository. Sales need their customer lists, and fulfillment needs order information.

While all these systems and technologies are important, we cannot fix everything at once in a disaster. The disaster recovery team should determine the amount of time the business can reasonably survive without that system or technology, who “owns” that system, and who will be responsible for restoring it. All this information should get added to the disaster recovery plan.

Maintain an inventory of physical assets 

The business should keep an updated list of all the equipment business uses daily. For example, the business should include

• Computers
• Servers
• Printers
• Phones
• Network hardware
• Office furniture
• Product inventory
• Shipping supplies

While developing this list, it is vital to consider the following questions: What would the business need to purchase to establish a new office location quickly?

In addition, the organization should speak with the insurance company when constructing the list. The agency will be able to provide specific information regarding what needs to get logged and how they can assist after a disaster.

Many companies can find recovery from significant blows to an organization challenging and resource-consuming. State-sponsored crime groups have become more sophisticated and can find exploits to vulnerable systems in days or weeks but in minutes. At the same time, the business, as the responsible party, is caught up in the middle.

Determine critical business information and systems

To ensure our critical infrastructure complies and is protected, systems must follow the following steps to keep our organizations safe.

• Protection for every endpoint

Use modern protection technologies to secure the business network solutions like anti-virus or intrusion detection and prevention systems.

• Back-up data automatically

Data backup solutions should run silently and automatically in the background without requiring any action by users or impeding their productivity. Also, prevent administrators from deleting important backups

• Prioritizes easy recovery

The organization should be able to specify a point in time to restore and recover files to any device.

• Check on the recovery process and procedures

It is crucial to check processes if they are still updated and if they are the most effective way of mitigating threats and preventing danger to business continuity

• Test security controls.

Before implementing them, ensure that they are effective and conform to the standards that the creators of the original framework have established

Create a communication plan

In the event of a disaster during off-hours, is the business prepared to inform employees? Where will the organization keep/update contact information for each group? How can the organization get in touch with each of these groups? In a disaster, the organization determines how and communicates with constituents. As well as who is responsible for those communications. Have alternate solutions available to avert any crisis that could arise due to miscommunication.

The importance of policies to reduce risks

Organizations implement. policies to reduce risks. Without policies in place, there would be no rules. The risks could be hazardous as we have different policies, for example,

1. Privacy policy
2. Acceptable use policy
3. Security policy
4. Mandatory vacation
5. Job rotation
6. Separation of duties
7. Least privilege

Privacy policy

If the business collects credit card information, regulations force us to use their policies that define the standards. Violate privacy policies. A lawsuit could result from insecure data storage. There is an indirect financial risk associated with this. Organizations implement privacy policies to reduce the risk of lawsuits.

Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

An acceptable use policy is vital to any organization’s safeguarding system. For example, suppose staff members misuse an organization’s vehicle for unauthorized purposes. In that case, the organization will know that the employee is well-informed and understands that using the organization’s vehicle for personal purposes is not allowed. So, an acceptable use policy is a set of guidelines that specify what is acceptable and what is not.

Policies

Determine how security roles get assigned in the organization, how accounts get created, and how passwords get managed. Regarding organization security, everything gets governed by the security policy, including password, complexity, length, and re-used.

The principle of mandatory vacation

Therefore, it is recommended that our users go on periodic vacations so that their activities can also get monitored. Someone else will sit at their desk and do their job if these people are committing fraud or crime.

Job rotation

The principle of job rotation dictates that our staff rotate amongst jobs as a form of cross-training to learn other people’s roles. So, in the absence of one person, another person can step into their shoes and perform their job. The loss of one person creates no vacuum.

Recovery after a cyber-attack

After a significant cyber-attack, it is essential to continue business operations as soon as possible. The following sections explain why it is crucial to have specific mitigations and strategies in place to ensure business continuity after a cyber-attack. One of the sections that generally needs to get noticed is fast incident response and risk management while also making quick business decisions.

Incident response

Procedures (IR) identify, contain, and eliminate cyber incidents. The incident response aims to enable an organization to detect and halt an attack as quickly as possible, minimizing damage and preventing similar attacks in the future.

Companies implement cybersecurity incident response plans (IR plans) to protect their networks from security incidents and prepare for, detect, respond to, and recover from them. IT protection plans are typically technology-centric, addressing problems such as malware detection. We can use a sample response plan to improve the organization’s response time.

1. Identify and prioritize the incident
   1. Determine the severity of the incident and prioritize it accordingly
2. Gather and analyze information
   1. About the incident, such as the circumstances of the incident, the date and time, and who was involved
3. Contain and isolate the incident
   1. Take steps to prevent the incident from spreading or worsening, such as disconnecting affected systems from the network
4. Identify and preserve evidence
   1. Collect and preserve relevant evidence, such as logs and other records, to help with the investigation and potential legal action
5. Notify relevant parties
   1. Depending on the nature of the incident, notify the appropriate parties, such as law enforcement, regulatory agencies, and affected individuals
6. Assess the impact of the incident
   1. Determine the extent of the damage caused by the incident and the potential impact on the organization and its stakeholders
7. Develop and implement a remediation plan
   1. Develop a plan to address the incident’s root cause and implement it as quickly as possible
8. Communicate with stakeholders
   1. Keep relevant stakeholders informed about the incident, including what happened, what gets done to address it, and any potential impact on them
9. Conduct a post-incident review
   1. Conduct a thorough review of the incident once it has got resolved to identify any lessons learned and areas for improvement
10. Update policies and procedures
    1. Based on the findings from the post-incident review, update the organization’s policies and procedures to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future
11. Provide ongoing support
    1. Provide ongoing support to affected individuals, such as offering credit monitoring services or assistance
12. Monitor for further incidents
    1. Monitor the organization’s systems and networks for any signs of further incidents, and respond quickly and effectively if any are detected

The incident response plan is just a general guideline, and we may need to tailor it to the organization’s specific needs. It is also essential to regularly review and update the plan to ensure it remains practical and relevant.