Incident Responses to Cyber Attacks and Breaches

Considerations for Boards and Audit Committees

Joel Lanz, CPA, CISA, CISM, CISSP, CFE

Recent media reports indicate that numerous organizations have suffered cyber breaches from increasingly sophisticated attacks. Victim organizations range from sensitive governmental and Fortune 500 companies to local school districts and small businesses. Recognizing these threats, boards of directors and their audit committees continue to expand their governance focus on protecting the data entrusted to their organization and their system's resiliency in case of an attack and breach. Many organizations have already adopted an incident response plan, and some have tested it. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, some boards do not identify the weaknesses in incident response programs until after a breach occurs. This article reviews several critical considerations that boards or audit committees should review with management at least annually.