Are you next? Will criminals target your organization with ransomware? No one can say for sure, so prepare now.

Here are four and a half critical decisions to make – and things to do – before a crisis hits.  

(What’s half a decision, you ask? What’s half an action, you may wonder. Read to end if you want to find out).

1. Do: Have a plan

This sounds so obvious, but I have seen major organizations in business and government scrambling to respond to a ransomware attack. Your plan should include at least these elements?

President Biden has recently issued the “Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity”, which requires government agencies to present plans for implementing a Zero Trust architecture, imposes stringent standards for threat sharing on government contractors and agencies alike, requires software vendors to show a Software Bill of Materials to demonstrate the security of their products, and seeks broad modernization of the Federal government’s cybersecurity posture.

Since the release of the final Federal Data Strategy Action Plan (henceforth FDSAP) the end of last year, much has been written about the Federal Data Strategy. However, little has been written to connect the important role it can play in enabling the adoption of AI within the federal public sector.