It’s not just about trying to avoid a breach — how you respond if, or when, one occurs is high priority. Indeed for organisations in the EU, it is now a matter of law, with the GDPR regulation stipulating a 72 hour window to provide notification of a breach — except under certain conditions.

Now, law firm DAC Beachcroft, has launched an online Breach Response Planner. The tool, which is accessed via an online portal, is designed to enable organisations to prepare for and manage cyber and data breach incidents.

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The planner guides users through a five step process:

• Stage 1: Users designate their organisation’s internal breach team.
• Stage 2: followed by designating those of their external advisors such as legal counsel, IT forensic investigators and communications experts.
• Stage 3: Users can then add the protocols they will follow when responding to the breach, such as the key objectives and the frameworks for classifying the severity of an incident.
• Stage 4: Once protocols are set, users can then determine their plan as to how they will: detect, triage and contain the breach.
• Stage 5: Assess the measures that need to be taken and notify affected parties.

The breach tool includes links to additional supportive material such as a breach severity risk matrix to assess and categorise a breach, a breach incident log, a breach checklist, useful breach scenario case studies, and a summary of the guidance for reporting a breach under the GDPR.

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Hans Allnutt, head of cyber and data risk at DAC Beachcroft, explains: “European data protection regulators recommend that organisations that handle personal data should have a plan in place to respond to security breaches. Our Breach Response Planner helps create that plan. If that organisation then suffers a data breach, all their key stakeholders have immediate access, via the online portal, to the information they need, so that they can respond in a focused, swift and measured manner.”

“Any changes to the plan are made in real time, so it is always up-to-date,” Allnutt adds. “Hosting it on an external server means it can be accessed any time, from anywhere and on any device. This is particularly useful should a firm experience a breach.”