A proactive approach to IT security can save your organization from disaster.
Cybercriminals rely on creating chaos. A security incident response plan is the best way to reduce the potential impact on your business’s reputation and bottom line.
If your organization has a response plan for common cyberattacks, such as a malware attack, then a solid and timely defense can be enacted. We understand that creating a security incident response plan seems overwhelming, but it doesn’t need to be.
What is a Security Incident Response Plan?
A security incident response plan is a set of instructions that your employees can follow when an IT security incident occurs. Your IT department should have response plans ready for predictable security scenarios before you need to use them. For example, suppose your organization is experiencing a ransomware attack. In that case, your IT department should find and refer to a ransomware response plan document as soon as they become aware of the attack.
Every second you spend under attack is money down the drain. By having a security incident response plan ready, your IT department can shut down a cyberattack with minimal downtime and disruption to your business operations.
What does a Security Incident Response Plan involve?
An effective security incident response plan needs to have the following elements:
- Define what type of incident the goal is for
- Call out the signs or events that will trigger the plan
- Designate the person or response team that will own the plan
- Give a high-level overview of how the project will be carried out
That’s it! A security incident response plan can be a simple two-page document and still effectively cover everything it needs. Unfortunately, 77% of organizations don’t have security incident response plans in place (Source: IBM). Your IT department should establish a security incident plan for your business and educate your staff regarding their roles and responsibilities in the event of an attack. If you have a plan and your employees are comfortable with playing their part, your organization will have the power to stop the bad guys in their tracks before they can cause any more damage.
How to Create a Security Incident Response Plan
Below is the process we use to create our security incident response plans. Your plan should explain what needs to happen at each of the five steps outlined in the process.
Here is some guidance on what each step should cover:
Detect
- How a potential incident can be recognized or detected
- Tools, processes, and procedures in place for the individuals first identifying the possible incident to notify the response team
Validate
- Key attributes of the event that the response team can check to qualify if it’s an incident
- How to handle false positives/non-events raised to the response team, consider adjusting Detection tools or processes
- For incidents, how to qualify potential operational, organizational, or financial severity
- Determination of the number of people and audiences (internal, external) affected to qualify scale
Damage Control
- Whom to notify when there’s an active incident and how
- Set expectations and ownership for updates
- Approved, escalating courses of action to stop further damage, preserve incident details, determine the perimeter, re-establish secure operations
- Summarized inventory of critical systems and potential control points
- Expectations for confirming the incident has been controlled, and the organization is ready to proceed to recovery
Recovery
- Prioritized business operations to resume
- Communication channels and setting expectations for impacted audiences (internal, external)
- Escalating courses of recovery to resume operations (optionally, prioritizing either least time to recovery or most minor work-loss recovery)
Refinement
- Evaluate plan effectiveness, lessons learned; implement appropriate improvements to prevention and protection
Creating and typing out a security incident response plan is excellent, but it is useless if no one knows about it. The entire project is reliant on the first step, detection. If your people haven’t been educated on what signs they need to look out for, they will notify your response team when an incident occurs. If the response team is not advised, then the plan won’t be enacted, and your organization will be at the mercy of the attacker.
Integrating employee IT security awareness into the company culture is something many organizations struggle to do successfully. If your organization is unsure how to educate and train employees on IT security best practices and trends, talk to our IT consultation team and check out our webinar, The Human Element of IT Security: Training Your Employees to Defend Your Business.