Fixing a large breach is astonishingly expensive.  To give a US example: in September 2017, Equifax reported that 140 million of the personal records it was holding had been hacked (the number was later increased to 147.9 million).  In July 2018, Equifax reported that it had already incurred $314 million of expenses related to the breach since its September 2017 announcement.

Managing a major breach is a complex and time-critical operation which requires a large number of different disciplines (IT, IT forensics, legal, insurers, PR, senior management etc) to work together effectively.   It’s not something that can be done at the last minute.  So, every time you hear someone advocating an emergency response, parachute response team or similar, the best thing to do is walk quietly away.

There is no avoiding putting in the hard yards first: this includes workshops, rehearsals and simulated breach events.  See our blog on Tesco Bank to see how the FCA rated Tesco Bank’s response to a live hack.

It might be trite to say it, but it remains true: prevention is better than cure, and it’s a lot cheaper.  We see one of the primary functions of This is DPO as shining a spotlight on the organisation’s security and breach response abilities.