Cyber incident response 101
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), incident response has five phases:
Identify
There are numerous security risks to be aware of in order to develop an effective incident response plan. This includes threats to your technology systems, data and operations, among other things. Understanding these risks allows you to be better prepared to respond to incidents and reduce their impact.
To identify risks, you can start by looking at system logs, examining vulnerable files or tracking suspicious employee activity.
Protect
It's critical to create and implement appropriate safeguards to protect your business. Safeguards include security measures to guard against threats and steps to ensure the continuity of essential services in the event of an incident.
To protect your business against cyberthreats, you can use backups, implement security controls such as firewalls, and train employees on security best practices.
Detect
Quickly detecting irregularities, such as unusual network activity or someone attempting to access sensitive data, is essential to limit the damage and get your systems back up and running faster.
Deploying techniques such as intrusion detection systems (ISDs) is an effective way to tackle irregularities.
Respond
You need to have a plan in place to respond to detected cyber incidents. This plan should include strategies for breach containment, investigation and resolution.
A few things you can do to respond to an incident are isolating affected systems and cutting off access to every impacted system.
Recover
Following an incident, you must have a plan in place to resume normal business operations as soon as possible to minimize disruption.
These steps can be part of your recovery plan:
- Restoring systems that have been affected by the attack
- Implementing security controls to prevent the incident from happening again
- Investigating the root cause of the event
- Taking legal action against perpetrators
Keep in mind that a well-crafted incident response plan will help you resolve a breach, minimize the damage caused and restore normal operations quickly and effectively. It's critical to ensure that all staff are aware of the incident response plan and know their roles and responsibilities in the event of a breach.
An incident response plan should be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure that it remains relevant and effective. Cyber incidents can occur at any time, so it's crucial to be prepared.