Is your business prepared for a data breach?

The first of three hypothetical scenarios examined by a board as part of the AICD’s Governance Summit this week was a malicious data breach.

The initial response to this ‘breach’ was not a smooth one.

In the first five minutes of the scenario, there was confusion about what to do and who was doing what - a crucial time when the CEO could have been in a much better position to assist the board if he and his executive team had worked through some disciplined breach preparation, including preparing a plan in advance of an actual breach.

If a plan had been prepared, the hypothetical CEO would have been able to say something along the lines of “we have a breach response plan, we know what we are doing, roles and responsibilities have been set, timings have been set, we have activated it.” And while all of this activity is going on, the board can focus on the high level public facing crisis issues.