Does Your Business Have a Cybersecurity Rescue Plan?
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Most companies have a fire drill but no plan for a cyber incident. When ransomware or a hijacked email account hits, people lose time deciding who is in charge and what to do first. A one-page rescue plan, written in advance, removes that confusion.
Who does what
Name a decision maker, a technical contact and a person responsible for communicating with staff and customers. Put their phone numbers somewhere that does not depend on your network being up.
First actions
- Isolate affected computers from the network rather than powering everything off blindly.
- Change passwords and sign out sessions for affected accounts, using a clean device.
- Preserve evidence such as ransom notes and suspicious emails.
- Contact your IT provider and, if you have one, your cyber insurance carrier.
Recovery
Restore from known-good backups, rebuild affected machines, and confirm attackers no longer have access before returning to normal operation. Knowing where your backups are and that they restore is the single biggest factor in how painful an incident is.
Notification and compliance
Depending on the data involved, you may have legal or contractual duties to notify customers, patients or regulators. Healthcare practices in particular should follow their HIPAA breach procedures.
Learn from it
After the incident, document what happened and close the gaps: MFA, patching, training, monitoring. Prevention is far less disruptive than recovery, which is the reason we offer proactive managed services.
Related reading
- managed cybersecurity for Portland businesses
- backup, disaster recovery and business continuity
- HIPAA security risk analysis for Portland clinics
Talk to a local team
PDX Information Technology Services provides managed IT, cybersecurity and compliance support for small businesses in Portland, Lake Oswego, Beaverton, Hillsboro and Vancouver, WA. Plans start at $100 per user per month (Gold) and $180 per user per month (Platinum). Call 971-331-4871 or book a free assessment.
Request an IT assessment
Tell us a little about your business and a PDX IT team member will follow up to schedule an assessment. Prefer to talk? Call 971-331-4871.
About the author: Steve Shaff
Steve Shaff is the owner of PDX Information Technology Services, a managed IT provider he founded in 2020. From the Tualatin office he helps businesses across Portland Metro & Southwest Washington with IT support, cybersecurity and compliance. More about Steve ยท Contact PDX IT
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