Cyber attacks are unfortunately inevitable. It’s important to security harden your networks as much as possible. But your organization must also be prepared for incident response. Effective incident response involves an awareness of various cyber risks and threats, having a plan to respond to the various ways they manifest, and having a team that can think quick on their feet when they actually occur.
Managing security incidents can be a stressful job. You are dealing with many questions all at once. What’s the scope? Who do I need to engage? How do I manage all of this? As an Incident Commander (IC), you have many responsibilities. You’re responsible for driving an incident to resolution as quickly as possible, creating the resources necessary to document, collaborate, and communicate while helping identify, engage, and orient the right people.
Today’s cybersecurity threats are so fast and sophisticated that they can disrupt IT functions for hours, days, and even months. For example, the ransomware attack prevents users from accessing their systems or files unless they pay a ransom to notorious extortionists. Under such circumstances, having an effective incident management program is always necessary.
An incident response plan is a set of written instructions that outline your organization's response to data breaches, data leaks, cyber attacks and security incidents. Incident response planning contains specific directions for specific attack scenarios, avoiding further damages, reducing recovery time and mitigating cybersecurity risk. Incident response procedures focus on planning for security breaches and how organization's will recover from them.