How Organizations Should Respond to Cyber Attacks. Essay Example

Cyber-attacks are criminal activities that are intended to steal, disable, or breach data and information from websites launched in one or more computers (Liang& Gaqi,np). Many cyber-attacks have been reported in several companies, bringing negative effects to the companies and the public at large. Many people or companies do not know how to react after experiencing a cyber-attack. In the first place, they do not even realize that they have been attacked by hackers. There are different steps that one should take after realizing that they have been cyber-attacked. This paper explains the different steps that ought to be taken when an organization or an individual needs to take after experiencing a cyber-attack.

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Ways of Preventing Attacks

The first step that every organization whose information is connected to the internet is to do monitoring and diagnosis of any attack. There should be a regular check on websites to find out if there might have been an attack. The monitoring will enable the enterprises to identify the attacks as early as possible if there was one. There has been an instance where attacks have occurred and went unnoticed for a long time. An unnoticed attack may cause more effects on the enterprise.

The second step is the escalation procedure to identify the part affected in the system.The attack sometimes may target some data or different sites of an enterprise. It is important to conduct an escalation procedure to identify the affected part and isolate it with other safe sites and data. This may require an expert or the engineers of the organization who know how to separate incidents and zeroes in the system (Liang& Gaqi,np).The next step an organization needs to take is to do an investigation to know the day and time that attack occurred. It is recommended that this should be done by the security authorities so that they can have that information which will be useful in prosecuting the attackers. The investigation procedure involves some stages. First is the evidence gathering, this procedure involves gathering proof that an attack was done on a certain site and some data or information was either damaged or breached. The second step is an analysis of the attack; the attack is analyzed and categorized based on the intensity. The third step of the procedure is the containment and eradication. This procedure is an attempt to prevent such an attack from occurring again by putting on the necessary measure, the process also stops the attack if the hackers are still in access to the data. The fourth action that needs to be taken is to identify the vulnerabilities that the organization has in its systems and address them. This will enable the organization not to experience an attack of that kind in the future. The process also helps to prepare and eradicate the process of the attack. The fifth and the last step that needs to be taken in case of a cyber-attack is resolving the problem. It involves reporting the problem to relevant authorities and launching a prosecution process to the attacker, it also involves ensuring the data stolen and notifying all the concerned people who may have lost their data and information.

In conclusion, a reaction to a cyber-attack is a very crucial step that needs to be taken in informed steps. The five steps discussed in the paper is a combination of one of the best steps that will help an organization go through the processes of detecting, identifying, solving, and eradicating the attack. It is the safest steps to react to the attacks that are recommended to organizations.

Work Cited

Liang, Gaoqi, et al. "Distributed blockchain-based data protection framework for modern power systems against cyber attacks." IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid 10.3 (2018): 3162-3173.