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ANALYSIS
• Invest in employee training
Humans are often the weak link, therefore educating staff on social engineering tactics like phishing and pretexting is vital. But make sure you regularly conduct cybersecurity drills to test responses to potential attacks. Likewise, develop clear protocols for reporting suspicious activity.
• Secure IT infrastructure and data
Where appropriate, apply zero-trust security frameworks to minimise risk. Regularly update and patch software to protect against vulnerabilities, encrypting sensitive customer data to prevent breaches and look to improve your network defences.
• Invest in long-term resilience and future prevention
Typically, when an attack happens, hackers will look to exploit any vulnerabilities to gain access to sensitive systems or data.
Make sure you conduct post-incident reviews to refine security strategies. Furthermore, consider investing in AI-driven threat detection for proactive defence and think about how you can strengthen supply chain security to mitigate third-party risks. You might also want to consider investing in SASE( Secure Access Service Edge) solutions to futureproof security infrastructure.
Call in the experts the attack vector and assessing the scope of the breach. They should implement a structured response strategy, including notifying relevant stakeholders and authorities as outlined above.
• Forensic investigation and threat analysis
Following immediate containment, the security team must conduct a deep-dive forensic analysis to understand how the attack occurred. Gathering as much evidence as possible for legal and compliance purposes and quickly implementing security patches to close vulnerabilities. Once this has taken place, gradually start to restore systems using clean backups to prevent reinfection.
• Strengthening access controls
Going forward the organisation should consider implementing multi-factor authentication( MFA) for employees and third-party vendors. Using role-based access to limit exposure to sensitive data. They must conduct regular security audits on privileged accounts and look to strengthen identity and access management.
According to IBM, the global average cost of a data breach in 2024 reached $ 4.88 million, marking a 10 % increase from the previous year. Specifically, retailers faced a significant rise in cyberattacks in 2024. According to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024, 50 % of businesses reported experiencing a cyberattack, with phishing( 84 %) being the most common method. Clearly cyberattacks can have lasting effects that not only cost millions of pounds to recover from, while damaging reputations, but they can even destroy a business. Therefore, taking proactive security measures is essential for the health of the business and the wellbeing of employees. Afterall nobody wants to start their day facing the chaos of a security breach.
Retailers can seek help from cybersecurity experts, specialist firms like Xalient and CyberQ are well practised at helping prevent incidents from occurring and / or supporting put in place the cybersecurity resilience required if you have unfortunately experienced an incident. Additionally, authorities like the NCSC are a good source for guidance on how to enhance cybersecurity resilience.
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