Most organisations understand that cybersecurity isn’t just an IT risk, but rather a business and legal risk, given the vulnerabilities and potential impact. The impact and visibility is about to be even greater due to mandatory data breach notification, according to Palo Alto Networks.
A recent report by Palo Alto Networks, The State of Cybersecurity in Asia Pacific, showed that Australian organisations are likely to embrace mandatory breach reporting requirements. The report revealed that 79 per cent of IT decision-makers agreed that reporting breaches to regulators should be mandatory and 69 per cent believe reporting of data breaches to regulators will help prevent cybercrime.
One way to prevent data breaches and other types of incidents from occurring is to understand and block against threats to your networks and data.
Voluntarily sharing cyberthreat information – among and between the private and public sectors, is a key tool to understanding the threats and protecting accordingly.
Sean Duca, vice president and chief security officer, APAC, Palo Alto Networks, elaborated on this point that, “To stay ahead of cyber criminals, it’s important that businesses see the value in voluntarily sharing cyberthreat information with other businesses and with government. There needs to be a framework around the types of information shared so that businesses feel comfortable sharing cyberthreat information with each other. This is the only way Australian organisations will be able to implement a cybersecurity posture oriented around prevention of data breaches rather than the far more expensive cure.”
Cheng Lim, Partner, King and Wood Mallesons, said, “Collaboration and engagement between IT, risk and legal departments is critical and essential in preparing for the commencement of the mandatory data breach notification and managing risk generally.”
Palo Alto Networks outlines six steps businesses IT and legal departments can take to prepare for the mandatory data breach notification scheme:
- Review the organisation’s data collection practices and policies, and ensure personal information is collected and stored only if necessary.
- Audit security risks to personal information held by the organisation and any held by third parties (such as cloud providers) on the organisation’s behalf.
- Consider how internal data-handling and data-breach policies should be updated to reflect the new requirements.
- Conduct table top exercises to test the effectiveness of the organisation’s incident response plan.
- Review steps in place to avoid data breaches (for example, physical security of laptops and papers, cybersecurity strategies, or ways to reduce administrative errors).
- Review contract management and ensure due diligence on contractors’ policies and appropriate contractual terms, particularly in the areas of dealing with data breaches, IT security and personal information storage and collection.
Sean Duca said, “Organisations need to make sure their IT, risk and legal teams work together to put a solid breach notification and communication plan in place. Such a plan can help avoid the associated PR disasters and possible litigation that may follow a breach. It could be the difference between retaining or losing clients and reputation”.
Cheng Lim said, “A proactive and collaborative approach is important as the legislation provides that notification of a data breach is not required if an organisation takes appropriate remedial action following the data breach, which results in serious harm not being likely to have been caused.”
