Knowing what to do should a cyber attack happen can help to limit the damage and could ultimately be the difference between getting through it and potentially having to close the business down for good. Here’s a few steps that can help in the event of a cyberattack.

1. Protect yourself immediately

As soon as you know you have a problem, run your antivirus programmes and change all of the business passwords straight away to try to mitigate against any further damage.

2. Let your web host know

Contact your web hosting company as they may be able to offer assistance to you as a customer and might be able to recommend programmes you can use to remove any viruses or other nasties from your system.

3. Let your customers know

While you might be tempted to hide it, this is where business reputations can be ruined. You need to let your customers know what has happened, what you are doing about it, and whether or not any of their data has been compromised.

4. Speak to your legal team

You need to get advice from your legal team, particularly if customer data has been compromised in any way as this could leave you open to prosecution. You may also be required to report the data breach as well, so seek advice straight away.

5. Speak to all your contacts

Once you have alerted customers and sought legal advice you might also need to speak to anyone else involved in the business such as suppliers, contractors, employees and any other companies you work with, to let them know too.

6. Clean and repair your system

The next step is to clean up and repair all your affected systems. It may be that you will need professional help with this to make sure all malware and viruses are cleared before you start working with customers again.

7. Keep everyone informed

Once you have told everyone about the attack it’s important to keep them informed every step of the way, so they are confident in the actions you are taking to safeguard their data in the future. Its steps like this which will help go some way to securing the business reputation.

Here at Hampshire Business Computers we have specialists in dealing with cyberattack problems who can help businesses get back on their feet, and advise on action to take and systems which could help improve your cyber security in the future. Please do get in touch if we can help.