Experian® Data Breach Response Guide
As we navigate new ways of living, working, and handling COVID-19, now is not the time to ease up on breach preparedness.
Foreword
For decades, the world has been on a steady and not-so-slow path of innovation and daily adoption toward what some might call digital domination. Almost everything is done and undone with a screen touch, keystroke, password, or PIN. This world is a reality now.
We are more digitally connected than ever before. While this connectivity allows for new technological capabilities, it also creates constant vulnerabilities for businesses, governments, and consumers. Those vulnerabilities cost lost time, money, relationships, and financial and reputational damage.
At Experian, we know that preparation is paramount when it comes to a cyberattack. We’re continuing to expand our product offerings, keep our eyes and ears on the lookout for rising threats and trends, and use our years of experience to support our partners when they need us most.
Introduction
Stay ready. In today’s fast-paced world, where cybercriminals can compromise your organization at every level in a second, staying prepared for a data breach is critical.
From the C-Suite to the call center, every employee in your organization must have breach risks on their radar and understand their role in your data breach response plan. The days of data breach preparedness falling squarely on the shoulders of cybersecurity and IT teams are over.
2021 broke data breach records. Again.
Industry Perspective
Explore industry insights on the top industries impacted by breach by number of compromises within the guide:
- The healthcare industry continues to be a top target for hackers
- According to Security Today, financial firms fall victim to data breaches almost 300 times more frequently than other industries
- Although 43% of cyber attacks target small businesses³, SMBs have fewer resources to plan for and respond to an attack
- More infrastructure and government-related attacks are ahead
- With the COVID-19-related shift to remote learning and reliance on technology, the educational sector, rich in PII, saw a rise in vulnerabilities and more frequent and sophisticated cybercrime
$4.62 million: the average total cost of a ransomware breach⁴
In 2021, a business was hit by a ransomware attack every 11 seconds, up from around 40 seconds in 2016⁵
50% of breaches occurred because of third-party supply chain partners⁶
Why Consumer Response Fail
Explore the top 6 reasons consumer response fail within the guide with learnings from real-world failures.
Creating Your Plan
Start with a Strong Response Team.
A data breach can significantly impact businesses of any size. Having a ready-to-go response plan and team in place can help prevent further data loss if a breach happens and also avoid significant fines and harm to your reputation.
Don’t wait to discover a breach to decide who will lead the breach management process.
A response team should be assembled well in advance and involve the coordination of multiple departments. Read our enclosed guidance into the internal members, external partners, and influencers that should play critical roles in your response plan.
Implementing Your Plan
84% of organizations say that their breach response plans could be more effective if they conducted more fire drills to practice.⁷
74% of organizations believe their data breach response plan could be effective if they incorporated what they learned from previous breaches.⁸
Auditing your preparedness plan helps ensure it stays current and useful. See the preparedness audit checklist in the guide for several recommended steps for conducting an audit.
Experian® Crisis Solutions
- Preemptively notifying consumers of potential danger
- Access to Experian's notification system
- Access to crisis specialists
- Experienced call center
- Notify your customers that a data breach has occurred
- Support from trained Experian agents ready to answer customer questions
- Protect and remediate identiity theft
- Guaranteed service availability with SLA
- Annual readiness: planning and exercising
- Customization in response
- Scale, speed and quality
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1,4IBM & Ponemon 2021 Cost of a Data Breach Report
²Identity Theft Resource Center: 2021 End-of-Year Data Breach Report
³Cybint Solutions. “15 Alarming Cyber Security Facts and Stats,” December 2020
⁵Cybersecurity Ventures, Cybercrime to Cost the World $10.5 Trillion Annually by 2025
6,7,8Experian and Ponemon. 2022. Ninth Annual Study: Is Your Company Ready for a Big Data Breach?