Cyber attacks aren’t just increasing in number – they’re becoming more sophisticated and damaging. Every day headlines report new breaches and cyber attacks affecting organizations of all sizes and industries.
The stakes are high: according to Accenture 43% of the cyber attacks are aimed at small organizations, yet only 14% are prepared to defend themselves. This growing cybersecurity threat landscape makes it more important than ever for organizations to be prepared. And the question here isn’t if you will be targeted, but when.
Imagine waking up to find your company’s sensitive data has been compromised. Panic sets in, and questions flood your mind: Am I ready for this? What should I do next? Do I have the resources and expertise to handle this crisis? The truth is, that the key to surviving a cyber incident is to have a robust incident response plan, a recovery plan, and a trusted cybersecurity partner by your side.
Incident recovery is the process of responding to and managing the aftermath of a security breach to minimize damage, restore operations, and prevent future attacks. It’s not just about fixing what’s broken; it’s about strategically navigating the first hours after an attack to protect your organization’s assets, reputation, and future.
In this blog post, we will provide all the information you need for crafting and following an effective recovery plan and will outline the incident response lifecycle and the benefits of having established incident response plans.
Why does your business need an incident response plan?
Given today’s dependence on information technology, implementing an action plan and having an incident response capability offer many advantages. You’d be able to pinpoint trouble areas, vulnerabilities, and security gaps in your current cyber defense, define employee roles and responsibilities in advance of an incident, and educate your team on common threats and online dangers.
Additionally, a plan for identifying incidents and responding to them sets up communication channels, including backups in case of widespread system failure. Such a plan enables real-time detection of specific incidents and events, while also allowing for the anticipation and preparation for other cyber threats, too. It ensures the protection of consumer data during an active incident and alleviates the concerns of key stakeholders.
The Process of Incident Response and Recovery
Below are the four most important steps to be taken right after a cyber incident occurs – immediate incident response; investigation and mitigation; rebound and recovery; and post-incident activity. These four phases of the incident response lifecycle and recovery are also covered by The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In the NIST directive, they are titled a bit differently but hold the same meaning: preparation phase; detection and analysis phase; containment, eradication, and recovery; post-incident activity.
NIST believes that those phases ensure that organizations are well-equipped to handle incidents swiftly and efficiently, minimizing damage and facilitating a quicker return to normal operations and business continuity.
Immediate Incident Response Phase
Incident response is a crucial aspect of network security for many organizations for a good reason. The faster you can implement effective measures to respond and address a crisis in depth, the better your chances of preventing or minimizing the impact.
Development of an Incident Response Plan
There are best practices to safeguard the resources of your entire organization from cyber threats, but no security measures can guarantee complete protection. This is why having an established cybersecurity incident response process is as crucial as implementing protective measures. Being prepared with a step-by-step strategy ensures that, if a cybersecurity incident ever occurs, you can effectively manage and mitigate its impact.
Crafting a robust incident response plan is crucial for effectively handling cybersecurity incidents. This plan provides security analysts with guidelines on how to address high-impact security incidents, such as data breaches, ransomware attacks, and sensitive data loss.
During the webinar Rebound and Recover: The Critical 48 Hours Post-Cyber Attack, Boris Goncharov, AMATAS’ Chief Strategy Officer, presented our detailed and ready-to-use incident response plan for organizations of all sizes and industries. This plan, designed for the crucial first 48 hours following a cyber incident, outlines three main stages, each detailing essential steps to be implemented for effective incident response lifecycle management.
From 00 to 06 hour, avoid erasing anything to preserve forensic evidence and isolate suspected systems to prevent spread. Immediately contact cybersecurity experts, alert your legal team, avoid altering compromised systems, document every action, and manage external communication carefully.
From 06 to 24 hours, conduct log analysis to trace attacker movements and identify the intrusion point. Assess the scope of the attack, apply necessary patches, perform forensic investigation, and maintain clear communication with stakeholders.
From 24 to 48 hours, confirm the extent of exfiltrated data and assess the impact on partners, then initiate recovery steps with unaffected backups. Consult with legal experts, draft PR statements, and continue to monitor the environment for further threats.
Immediate Incident Response
The immediate incident response phase starts when a breach is detected. Boris Goncharov emphasizes the importance of preserving evidence:
“Isolate the suspected systems, but don’t erase anything. By wiping everything out you are destroying crucial pieces of evidence. In this kind of situation, you may not think about that, but later down the road you will need evidence for different reasons like to do a forensic analysis.”
During our webinar “Rebound and Recover: The Critical 48 Hours Post-Cyber Attack” Boris recommended isolating suspected systems and of course involving legal counsel early enough to understand reporting obligations and protect your most sensitive data and company resources. It’s vital to document every action taken, including who did what and when. This meticulous record-keeping is essential for later investigations and reporting to authorities and partners.
Role Assignments
Effective incident response requires a well-structured team with clear role assignments. Key roles include an incident response manager to oversee the process, multiple security analysts to monitor and analyze threats, forensic analysts to investigate and preserve evidence, and threat hunters to proactively pinpoint potential risks. IT support is crucial for technical assistance.
If these roles are not already in place, it’s essential to contact experts immediately and employ an external incident response team. Additionally, involving a legal team early ensures compliance and proper handling of legal issues, while a PR team manages external communications to protect the organization’s reputation.
Investigation and Mitigation Phase
Next, the investigation and mitigation phase involves a deep dive into the breach. This period focuses on identifying the attacker’s entry point, tracing their movements, and understanding the extent of the compromise. Techniques such as log analysis and comparing against known attacker profiles from sources like CISA advisories help in this stage. Critical actions include applying patches and fixes to close vulnerabilities and beginning a forensic investigation to uncover hidden attacker technology and backdoors.
Your incident response team must be adept at detecting and analyzing security incidents as they occur. Ideally, they should be able to find real-time threats and anomalies.
Monitoring and Detection
During the detection phase, it’s crucial to answer key questions to effectively respond and manage the threat: When was the incident detected? How was it discovered? Who found the issue? What areas are affected? How severe is the compromise? Does it impact operations? Where did the incident originate?
The best option would be to utilize the right tools – advanced real-time systems for threat monitoring and incident detection or make use of thrusted managed detection and immediate response capability and service. For example, the AMATAS Managed XDR services provide 24/7 monitoring, combining both automated and human intelligence to detect and respond to security incidents promptly.
Solutions like DarkTrace security and Rapid7 security offer real-time analytics and threat detection to swiftly detect and mitigate security incidents. However, the proper management of such tools and resources internally would end up being quite expensive and complicated for many organizations.
Impact Assessment
During the impact assessment, it’s crucial to determine the scope of the attack. This involves identifying which systems have been compromised and understanding what resources were accessed or exfiltrated. Establishing these details helps define the extent of the damage and inform the necessary response actions.
The ‘Rebound and Recover’ Phase
During the recovery phase, organizations should validate the extent of data exfiltration and assess the impact on partners and the supply chain. Crafting accurate, legally vetted statements for regulators, clients, and the media is crucial to ensure business continuity. To recover you might need to restore systems from backups or rebuild compromised infrastructure components, such as Active Directory. Legal and public relations consultations ensure that communications and actions are appropriate and effective.
Throughout all these phases, constant monitoring and caution are necessary, as initial recovery is just the beginning. Boris Goncharov reminds us that “recovering from a cyberattack can take years,” underscoring the importance of thorough preparation and incident response to rebuild and sustain a company’s operations and reputation.
Containment Strategies
Containing a serious security breach is crucial to prevent it from spreading and causing further damage to your organization. To isolate the security threat, disconnect affected devices from the Internet, if feasible. It’s essential to have both short-term and long-term strategies in place. Additionally, maintaining a redundant system backup is recommended to help restore business operations efficiently.
During the containment phase, several key questions must be addressed: What measures have been taken for short-term containment? What actions have been implemented for long-term containment? Has any malware been detected and properly quarantined? Are backups available and up-to-date? Does remote access require multi-factor authentication? Have access credentials policies been reviewed, strengthened, and updated? Lastly, have all recent security patches and updates been applied? Addressing these questions ensures a comprehensive approach to managing and mitigating the breach effectively.
Eradication of Threats
The eradication is a significant step and shouldn’t be underestimated. An attack is completely eliminated once its root cause is identified and contained. Initially, temporary incident response steps might be taken, but they should quickly be replaced with a permanent solution.
The eradication phase generally follows a specific process: running antivirus and antimalware scans on the affected systems to identify and confirm the threat’s removal, uninstalling or deleting affected data or software, restoring or replacing any missing data, applying patches to outdated systems, rebooting or reinstalling the primary operating system in extreme cases, and notifying those.
Recovery Actions
The primary goal of this recovery phase is to restore data and system functionality to normal operations. If unaffected backups are available, start by conducting test restores in an isolated environment, ensuring to avoid any risk of re-infection. Once verified, proceed with full system restorations. It’s essential to apply all necessary security patches and updates during this process to prevent future incidents. Carefully monitor the restored systems for any signs of persistent threats. Additionally, update and strengthen access controls and passwords to enhance security. This thorough approach ensures that business operations can resume securely and get back to normal activity.
Post-Incident Review and Improvement
The final step in the incident response process, although often overlooked, is crucial for long-term security. The post-incident review process and training aims to evaluate the incident response and recovery efforts to identify areas for improvement, thereby enhancing preparedness and preventing future similar incidents.
Lessons Learned
The first step is to thoroughly analyze the incident recovery process for its effectiveness and pinpoint any shortcomings. Hold a debriefing session with the incident response team to discuss what worked well and what needs improvement. This collaborative review will help in refining the incident response steps and strategies and provide a solid foundation for future incident handling.
Continuous Improvement
Based on the insights gained from the post-incident review, update your actions plan, risk assessments, and training programs. Incorporate the lessons learned and feedback into these plans to address any identified gaps or weaknesses and respond to other attacks. Regularly updating these protocols ensures that your organization remains resilient and better equipped to handle similar incidents in the future. This commitment to continuous improvement is key to maintaining robust cybersecurity defenses.
FAQs:
What is the difference between incident recovery and disaster recovery?
Incident recovery focuses on managing the aftermath of cybersecurity breaches to minimize damage, restore operations, and prevent future attacks. Disaster recovery deals with restoring IT infrastructure and operations after major events like natural disasters or large-scale system failures. Both are vital for business continuity but address different types of crises. Incident recovery handles cybersecurity, while disaster recovery handles broader catastrophic events.
What is a security incident response plan?
A security incident response plan is a documented strategy outlining the actions to be taken when a cybersecurity incident occurs. It provides a systematic approach to identifying, containing, and mitigating threats to minimize damage and restore normal business operations quickly. It includes roles and responsibilities, communication protocols, specific steps for handling various types of incidents, ensuring effective and efficient responses.
What is the difference between incident response plans and incident recovery plans?
An incident response plan focuses on the immediate post-incident activities to contain and mitigate threats during and after a cybersecurity incident. It emphasizes rapid threat identification and containment. An incident recovery plan, however, focuses on restoring normal operations after the threat is contained, involving restoration of IT systems, data recovery, and long-term security measures.
AMATAS can help you build and implement a comprehensive incident response and recovery plan tailored to your needs. Looking for a trusted cybersecurity partner? Contact us to discuss how we can help you in strengthening your defenses and responding effectively to incidents.
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