Breached? What do You do Now?


Published: February 13, 2021

Breach News Summary – Fighting Identity

fightingidentitycrimes.com

On February 9, 2021, my email was breached. I started getting calls immediately from vendors, and other business partners, and associates regarding this email. My first call came from The Better Business Bureau, where I am a member. My second came from my wife. Now I will not go into what was said in the email that raised eye-brows that questioned the email, but I would say what was asked in the email was out of character of myself.

Experian

So you have been breached, now what? Well, Experian gives their thoughts on the subject with five recommendations of what you should do.

  • Stay Alert: Watch your mail and be mindful of any correspondence that has you doing something that you never sighed up for.
  • Fraud Alert: Inform the credit bureau of your information being breached.
  • Financial Accounts: Review any and all financial accounts, look for discrepancies and report them to the proper authorities.
  • Monitor your Credit Reports: Contact the various credit bureaus and get a copy of your credit profile.
  • Freeze Profile: Contact the bureaus and freeze your credit profile; this will alert any financial organizations of a possible fraud to your account.

I believe it is necessary to document the time, date, and what you did or due diligence to show the world that you took proper measures to keep others safe and you reported the breach. This act could positively affect the future by showing you were proactive in this event in your financial life.

Small Business Data Breach

Whoa.com did an article on Small Business data breach how no matter how much security an organization puts in data breach security, it can happen to any business. This is a 4 million dollar problem for entrepreneurs/small businesses, but what does a company do when breached? The sooner they have attacked the situation, the better for their customers, and risk is reduced.

Thus, the question is, what does a small business do after a breach has been discovered in their business?

  • Identify the source: Having an IT team with the knowledge of what to do ASAP and having a security package that can identify what and where the problem is, isolate and remove from the system.
  • Address the breach: When known of a violation, let all parties know that a breach has occurred, and you are working to solve the issue.
  • Test: Test the fixes that have been made to rectify the issues of the breach.
  • Inform all parties: Inform authorities and parties that have been affected by the breach.
  • Post-breach cleanup: Let all parties know what you have done to rectify the breach situation. Neutralizing the breach will give way to credibility throughout the ecosystem and build your reputation of being diligent.

In Closing

Data breaches use to be that of only larger organizations, but no so today. Thus, everything that is done today is digital. And more people and organizations are now having a digital footprint over that of the past. Breaches are more commonplace today; even smaller organizations are being breached due to additional business going digital over that of the traditional ways of communication of the past.

Entrepreneurs/small business organizations must have security in place to try to deter or mitigate the problem of breaches. All organizations are mindful of the information that they have on their customers and look to keep that information secure. For breaches is not something organizations would like to have in the public domain. But in the end, having the proper security in the house to deflect such an occurrence is in the best interest of the business organization and would maintain a good report from its customers and support group.

Donald E. Mitchell, D.B.A., M.B.A., B.B.A.

Small Business Consultant-Specializing in Marketing

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