If your business is compromised during a cyberattack, you risk losing crucial data, the ability to work, and even your customers. Even a seemingly small incident can spiral into a disastrous cybersecurity threat, which is why your business must always be on alert for potential dangers. The sooner you’re able to detect a cyberthreat, the sooner you can respond and prevent costly consequences. Continue reading to learn how to identify a cybersecurity threat early on and the steps you need to take to protect your business when this occurs.
Common Cybersecurity Threats
Before you can defend your business, you need to understand what you’re up against. According to Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, there’s been a 34% increase in cybercriminals exploiting vulnerabilities to gain initial access and cause security breaches. These vulnerabilities include ignorance of cybersecurity threats, how they work, and how to spot and stop them. The most common cyberthreats include the following:
Phishing Attacks: These fraudulent emails or messages are designed to trick people into sharing sensitive data or clicking malicious links that install malware onto your device.
Malware: These kinds of cyberattacks include viruses, spyware, and more, all aimed at disrupting, damaging, or gaining unauthorized access to secure systems.
Ransomware: This malicious software encrypts your business data and holds it hostage until a ransom is paid. Not only does this result in data loss, but compliance violations and reputational damage as well.
Insider Threats: Sometimes the threat comes from inside your business. This can be intentional or accidental where employees with too much access or poor security habits put your network at risk.
Now that you are aware of the cybersecurity threats most likely to target your business, you can keep your eyes peeled for them so you can respond quickly.
Why Early Detection is Important
Cybersecurity threats are everywhere and are anything but harmless. If not stopped soon enough, cyberattacks can spread to your entire system, stealing your private data and even making you unable to access it. This is devastating to modern businesses, who rely on data access to serve clients and perform day-to-day operations. Being unable to work won’t be the only thing costing you money as a result though. If your business is hit by a ransomware attack, cybercriminals will pressure you to pay them for the possibility they’ll return your stolen information. Even if you don’t pay the ransom or are victim to this kind of attack, data recovery will take time and money. Not to mention you may lose business as customers start to see you as untrustworthy.
How to Detect a Cybersecurity Threat Early
The sooner you catch a cybersecurity threat, the more likely you are to contain it before damage is done. To accomplish this, you need reliable cybersecurity software that constantly monitors your systems for suspicious activity. Whether you have a threat detection system or not, there are certain signs you need to watch out for. For example, if your systems are running unusually slow or frequently crashing, malware could be consuming resources and corrupting files in the background. You may also get notifications of repeated failed login attempts. This can mean a cybercriminal is attempting to guess your login credentials.
While cybersecurity software provides protection for all devices, networks, and data, it also uses antivirus to detect and remove malware. As part of cybersecurity software, antivirus software will also send out alerts when a cybersecurity threat has been detected, no matter how minor it may seem. It’s important that all logs are regularly monitored and alerts are escalated appropriately when they do start to affect more than one system.
Employees are often the first line of defense against cybersecurity threats. Make sure your staff members are receiving regular cybersecurity training, so they know the warning signs of a cyberattack. These could include receiving a strange email, seeing suspicious activity in their account, or even a device working slower than normal. Make sure there is a clear and simple reporting process your employees can use to notify your IT team that there’s a potential cybersecurity threat so it is resolved as quickly as possible.
How to Respond When You Suspect a Cybersecurity Threat
When a cybersecurity threat hits your business, the worst thing you can do is wait. As soon as something doesn’t seem right, it’s time to act to mitigate any disastrous consequences. Start by removing affected systems from your network to prevent the spread of the cyberattack. Next, notify your IT team if they aren’t already aware so they can begin the recovery process. You’ll also want to avoid wiping or restarting your systems until logs have been collected. These records can tell your IT team critical information about the cybersecurity threat, from how it infiltrated your system to how much it has spread. This information helps your IT team respond appropriately to the threat. Once your IT has completely contained the cybersecurity threat, they can begin removing malware, patching vulnerabilities, restoring clean backups, and conducting a post-incident review. It isn’t enough to know how a cyberattack made its way into your system, you also need to understand how to stop it from happening again.
Who to Call When You Detect a Cyber Threat
If someone in your business discovers a cybersecurity threat, they need to know exactly who to report it to. This is where having a dedicated incident response team is invaluable. They are a group of professionals who know exactly how to handle a suspected cyber threat. And by clearly defining their roles, you ensure everyone in your business knows who to call when they suspect a cyberattack. Make sure your business’ incident response team has the following roles:
- If you or someone on your team discovers a potential cyber threat, report it to your incident response manager. They should be a member of your IT and incident recovery teams who oversees responding to cyberattacks.
- After your incident response manager has been notified, either by a person or a monitoring system, they will pass the information on to the incident response team’s security analysts. These team members contain the cyber threat and investigate it to assess its impact.
- Once a cyberattack has been contained, security analysts will notify IT infrastructure specialists. These experts focus on restoring your systems and mitigating any damage done by the cyberattack.
- During this process, communication specialists will ensure the incident response and management teams are keeping each other updated and engaging in a clear dialogue. If need be, they will also reach out to any external partners, law enforcement, and customers to stay compliant and share important information.
Threat Detection and Response FAQs
Many threats go unnoticed until it’s too late. Unusual network activity, slow systems, unauthorized access attempts, or strange emails from internal accounts are all red flags that you’re dealing with a cybersecurity threat.
In some cases, within minutes. Ransomware can encrypt your files in under an hour, while credential theft can result in unauthorized transactions or data breaches almost immediately.
Absolutely. An incident response plan outlines the steps to take with a threat is detected, who is responsible for responding to it, how to communicate with stakeholders, and how to recover safely.
- Disconnect affected devices from the network.
- Do not power down your devices unless you are unable to disconnect them from the network.
- Notify your incident response team.
- Do not delete anything or try to fix it yourself.
The best way to protect your business from the latest cyber threats is by using a combination of real-time monitoring, regular cybersecurity training, and having a clear incident response plan. This helps improve your team’s ability to spot threats early on and respond to them effectively.
No, while antivirus software is crucial to detecting cyber threats, it does little else to help keep your business safe. A strong cybersecurity plan should involve threat detection, response, and prevention. Afterall, the best way to protect your business is to stop cyberattacks before they strike.
- Endpoint detection and response (EDR)
- Network monitoring and logging
- Managed antivirus and firewalls
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Employee cybersecurity training
Expert threat detection and response will conduct a complete security analysis, remove any remaining threats, restore systems from clean backups, and provide a report with prevention recommendations. Threat detection and response protocols should then by updated to help prevent repeat incidents.
If possible, set up automated backups so that you always have your latest data saved. Follow the 3-2-1 rule for backups and have three copies of your up-to-date data, stored on at least two different forms of media, with one of them being stored offsite.
Yes, regular vulnerability scans spot weaknesses in your cybersecurity defenses so you can improve them before cybercriminals can exploit them.
Don’t Wait for a Data Breach to Act
Waiting until after a cybersecurity threat strikes is not a strategy, it’s a liability. Your business needs to have strong cybersecurity measures in place to keep your data safe and prevent operation disruptions. Sign up for our free cybersecurity e-course to receive weekly lessons on how you can protect your business from the latest cyberthreats and prevent unplanned downtime.
