One of the issues that arose after the Commonwealth Government recently announced its Cybersecurity Strategy was whether businesses were willing to share their cybersecurity data with government and how many businesses have a data breach incident response plan.

Part of the problem is that businesses may not be aware that they have cybersecurity weaknesses let alone whether there has been a data breach. Do you test the security of your systems? If you have an IT professional who monitors cybersecurity do they update the CEO and the Board as attacks or breaches occur or only monthly or on a need-to-know basis?

According to recent surveys, employee error was the most common reason for a breach. Are your staff aware of the risk of a data breach? Even a simple flaw in a spreadsheet could unwittingly release valuable commercial and customer data.

Here is a data breach response plan checklist.

It is expected that notification of serious data breaches will become mandatory for businesses later this year.