Monitoring emerging and growing cyber threat trends like ransomware can help companies avoid trouble spots. But what do you do if your company is attacked?

FGH’s Global Managing Partner Paul Holmes and Managing Director Mike Dolan recently spoke with Manny Jean-Georges and Brice Daniels of Mandiant Consulting about how organizations can respond in the event of a cyber issue:

• As with any type of crisis, organizations that plan, prepare and train ahead of time are going to be better positioned to respond effectively. 
  • Identify the cross-functional working group responsible for managing a cyber issue. 
  • Understand the internal moving parts of the investigation and response after an incident. 
  • Conduct a tabletop exercise to work through key questions across the business, executive, and incident management teams: How will leadership be involved? How will you communicate to employees and customers? 

• Be prepared for supply chain-type attacks, a growing area of concern. Thinking about an effective plan for how to prepare and react is critical.

• Incident investigation takes time, but silence won’t help. Communicators should strive for transparency while understanding data and conclusive answers may be delayed. In more recent ransomware incidents, victim organizations have detailed their steps in addressing the incident and identified the environments impacted.

• Stay clear-eyed about short and long-term goals. Focus first on containing the threat before worrying about fixing the damage. 

Read more of their advice here.