Incident Response:How to Help Employees When Cyber Threats Strike

Imagine your organization's cyber defenses as a well-trained emergency response team. (Work with us here). Just like a strong immune system in a healthy body can fight off infections or the same defensive posture will snap into place in a well trained police unit, Cyber Resilience in the Human Landscape means the ability for every person in your organization to be prepared to act swiftly and effectively when cyber threats arise. We think the real magic to this lies not just in the technology but in the behavioral and psychological realm. How quickly and efficiently your people can respond is a question of knowledge, mindset, procedure, behavior, and culture. 

At Cybermaniacs, we're all about empowering your workforce to become cyber-first responders. It’s not just about pressing the phishing alert button—it's about fostering a culture where every employee knows exactly what to do the moment a threat is detected. This isn't a one-off training session; it's about ingraining a behavior change that makes incident response second nature.

Early and effective response can be the difference between a minor hiccup and a major disaster. By focusing on human-centric design and empathetic reporting protocols, you can improve reporting rates and enhance your overall cyber resilience. Post-incident analysis is crucial too—learning from each incident helps prevent future breaches and turns your team into cyber heroes.

So, whether you're a seasoned cyber pro or new to the field, remember: a quick, coordinated response can save the day. Let's dive into how you can make that happen.

What Should You Teach Employees To Do at the First Sign of a Cyber Threat?

1. Take a Deep Breath and Assess the Situation

Identify the Threat:  Threat identification is a key aspect of training around common cyber risks. While every employee can’t be a technical expert, the basic understanding of type and consequence is important. Is it a phishing email, or unexpected system behavior? The quicker the information related to the type of threat is related, the faster you can respond.

Step Back and Disconnect: If the threat involves malware or unauthorized access, disconnect the affected devices from the network to prevent the spread of the threat. Set the devices aside until a game plan is established.

• Time to Chat with IT

Report Immediately: Steps 1 and 2 go hand-in-hand. Your workforce should know how to contact your IT department or security team as soon as they suspect a cyber threat. The basics on how to provide relevant details, such as the type of threat, how it was detected, and any immediate actions taken are important. Training your help desk to be patient, empathetic, and understanding of non-technical folks can also go a long way- if there is a major issue, creating a culture of fast reporting means no toxic judgements or retribution from the IT team towards those who report- full stop. 

Follow Reporting Protocols: (There should already be one in place) This typically involves filling out an incident report form or contacting a designated incident response team member.

• Don’t Be the Hero

Avoid Interacting: Make sure your workforce knows the basics- do not click on suspicious links, open unknown attachments, or attempt to investigate the threat on your own. Going rogue could mean further damage down the road.

Take Note: We do however encourage information sharing, so you can include in your procedural steps for employees to jot down any details related to the threat, such as the time it was noticed, the affected systems, and any error messages. 

Post-Threat Analysis and Future Prevention

• Digital Sweep-Up

Strengthen Passwords: If the incident involved compromised passwords, run a company wide campaign on updating to strong passwords using strong, unique combinations for each account (yes, EACH account). Consider implementing a password manager for safe storage.

Double-check that Email: Ramp up efforts and awareness campaigns regarding email security. Be wary of suspicious emails, links, and attachments. Always verify the sender's identity before taking any action.

• Dive Into Safe Browsing Practices

Avoid Suspicious Websites: Trust is a hard psychological element in our digital - human interface- the more we talk about it the more relevant it will become to your employees. Don’t trust the website? Don’t click it. Visiting websites that seem suspicious or untrustworthy should flash immediate red flags. Use secure, known sites for your online activities.

Use Security Software: Are you covering the basics in your training for personal and professional application of AV? Make sure ALL devices have updated security software, including antivirus and anti-malware programs, to help detect and prevent threats.

• Practice Good Data Management

Regular Backups: Knowing what and how to back up still seems to challenge the audiences in your organisation who are slower digital adopters or if you’ve been through many revolutions of digital transformation, security fatigue can set in. Thinking about data and information security by role or function helps make these instructions more clear to employees regarding regularly backing up important work-related data. This however, puts the burden on the information security team to map out those audiences and use cases up front- but the effort is worth the rewards! 

Secure Sensitive Information: Depending on your business model and unique strategy, this can be best trained on and understood in terms of actual work product and processes. If post breach you need to increase the practice of how employees handle and store sensitive information, the work practices need to be better understood and close collaboration with all departments using confidential or sensitive information should be consulted. Measure the success via use of the offered encryption and secure storage solutions for confidential data.

Proper Preparedness Prevents Poor (Digital) Performance

Saying you understand what to do during cyber threats vs. reacting properly makes all the difference, whether it’s at home or within your organization, and we want to make sure that your proactivity and reactivity work hand in hand when it comes to staying cyber safe!

Need some additional response preparedness? Check out a few of our other blogs to provide a digital helping hand for your team – starting with this one!