Navigating Cyber Incidents Efficiently
Akshay Misra
AVP, Head of Cyber Incident Response and Document Review
Iota Analytics
Emily Johnston
Product Manager - Incident Response
iCONECT
The Impact of Cyber Incidents
In today's digital age, data is a valuable asset that can quickly become a liability if not properly secured, posing risks to an organization’s reputation. Effective data privacy practices are essential to reduce the risk of breaches. A data breach occurs when unauthorized individuals or entities gain access to sensitive information. By implementing robust security measures and complying with privacy regulations (such as GDPR and CCPA), organizations can decrease the likelihood of breaches and protect privacy rights. Data privacy and data breaches are closely intertwined, with breaches directly affecting data privacy. Here’s how they are connected:
Violation of Privacy Rights: Breaches often result in violations of individuals' privacy rights, leading to potential identity theft, financial fraud, or reputational damage.
Legal and Compliance Issues: Organizations are legally required to protect the personal data they collect. A breach may indicate a failure to implement adequate security measures or comply with data protection regulations, leading to legal consequences and financial penalties.
Trust and Reputation: Data breaches can erode trust between organizations and their customers. If individuals feel their privacy has been compromised, they may lose confidence in the organization's ability to safeguard their data, impacting its reputation and business relationships.
The impact of data breaches listed above can be minimized with a swift and reliable action plan. While data privacy measures are a necessity today, having a contingency Cyber Incident Response plan in place is equally necessary. Utilizing AI-based technology and review experts, organizations can ensure that the damage is minimal and avoid the worst from happening.
Cyber Incident Response – Where do we Start?
Post confirmation of a cyber incident, it is critical to review the compromised data to extract Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Protected Health Information (PHI) elements. This is essential for promptly notifying affected individuals. Extracting PII and PHI involves several challenges, primarily centered around ensuring accuracy, protecting privacy, and complying with regulatory requirements. The key challenges are:
Data Fragmentation: PII and PHI may be scattered across multiple data fields or records, requiring comprehensive coverage of all elements.
Completeness: Ensuring all necessary information for each affected individual is included in the notification list for accurate and complete notifications.
Privacy and Security Concerns: Safeguarding PII and PHI during extraction, transfer, and storage to prevent unauthorized access.
Regulatory Compliance: Complying with data protection laws such as GDPR, HIPAA, or CCPA, which mandate specific requirements for handling and notifying individuals about breaches involving their PII and PHI.
Notification Requirements: Adhering to legal and regulatory requirements regarding breach notifications, including timelines and content of notifications.
Expertise and Resources: Allocating sufficient resources, including personnel with expertise in data privacy, legal compliance, and communication, to manage the extraction and notification process effectively.
Contextual Understanding: Recognizing PII and PHI within text requires understanding its context and relevance, as not all instances of data (like names or addresses) necessarily qualify as PII/PHI depending on the context.
To overcome the above stated challenges, it is essential for an organization to understand and evaluate the density of the protected personal information contained in the breach sets. During a breach review, data mining plays a pivotal role in understanding the scope and impact of the incident. It helps in categorizing and analyzing the compromised data, such as identifying sensitive information like personal records or financial data that may have been exposed.
Data mining and breach review are indispensable components of a comprehensive breach review strategy. They empower organizations to detect, analyze, and respond to data breaches effectively, ensuring the protection of sensitive data and maintaining trust with stakeholders in an increasingly digital and interconnected world.
Next-Gen Cyber Incident Response Solutions
Confronting difficulties during Cyber Incident Response necessitates a comprehensive strategy that integrates technology, legal compliance, privacy protection, and effective communication practices. Iota Analytics prioritizes transparency, accuracy, and sensitivity in handling Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI) for notification lists to mitigate risks, comply with regulatory obligations, and uphold trust with our clients.
Our rigorous process includes multi-layered checks to deliver an accurate notification list, complemented by our technology solution, in partnership with iCONECT. This AI-driven tool offers a holistic approach to managing data breaches. By leveraging the iCONECT tool alongside robust review management methods, we aim to transition clients swiftly from response to recovery, achieving improvements in response times, reduced review costs, and significantly decreased manual hours required for reviews.
Here’s how the next-gen Cyber Incident Response solution built in collaboration with iCONECT is truly differentiated:
User-Centric Technology: Designed by a former practitioner attuned to user pain points, ensuring a focus on user experience and streamlined processes.
Comprehensive Compliance: Adheres strictly to regulatory standards, safeguarding PII and PHI through transparent and accurate handling practices.
Tech + SME Approach: Our team comprises industry experts proficient in regulatory requirements, utilizing a Tech + Subject Matter Expert approach to identify and consolidate relevant PII and PHI elements, saving substantial manual effort.
Data Mining: Utilizes advanced analytics such as email threading, textual near-duplicates, and de-duplication methods to manage review volumes during data mining.
Cost-Effective Solutions: Focuses on end-to-end cost containment by conducting pre-review risk analysis to segregate PII and PHI elements based on statistical sampling.
Accurate Budgeting: Ensures precision in budget estimates and deadlines through a thorough understanding of the dataset and leveraging features like density reporting.
Auto-Generated Notification Lists: Implements next-gen technology to minimize manual hours and review costs via automated entity grouping, entity resolution engine and customized notification lists.
Iota Analytics in partnership with iCONECT offers an integrated solution combining technological innovation with expert oversight to effectively navigate cyber incident response complexities. Our goal is to expedite recovery, minimize costs, and ensure compliance, empowering clients to emerge stronger from data breaches. This strategic partnership empowers our clients to leverage cutting-edge AI technology and expert review capabilities, setting a new industry standard in this field.
