The term Incident response is an organized approach used to describe the process by which a firm addresses, manages and handles a data breach or cyber attack, including the way the organization attempts to cope up with the circumstances and consequences of the attack or breach (the “incident”). Effectively, the primary goal of incident response is to enable an organization to quickly detect and halt attacks, minimizing recovery time and costs, as well as collateral damage such as brand reputation.
This scenario has played out many times around the world, how effectively you respond to this situation depends on the answer to one question, “How does Incident Or Security Responses occur?”
Incident Responses occurs when a unit attempts to gain unofficial access to an organization’s data infrastructure or security policy, putting confidential information at high risk. Attackers are a threat to organizations because they can target any susceptibility in infrastructure using various types of techniques at any particular time. So the Incident response is mainly about making and having an escape plan before it is required. Rather than being an IT-centric process, it is an overall business function that helps ensure an organization can make speedy decisions with reliable information.
Who handles incident responses?
Preferably, incident response activities are held and conducted by an organization’s computer security incident response team (CSIRT), also known as a cyber incident response team ,a group of security centric skilled people that has been previously selected to include information security and general IT staff as well as C-suite level members. The appointed team may also include representatives from the legal, human resources and public relations departments. The incident response team follows the organization’s incident response plan (IRP), which is set of documented procedures presenting the written instructions detailing the steps that should be taken in each phase of incident response to network the events, security incidents and confirmed breaches. The main objective of CSIRT is to manage the overall incident response initiative for establishing incident response plan when the bat-signal goes up.
What Happens If We Don’t Have an Incident Response Plan?
When the company’s reputation, revenue, and customer trust is at stake, it’s vital that an organization needs to identify and respond to security incidents and events immediately. Whether a breach is small or large, organizations is in urgent need to have an incident response plan in place to moderate the risks of being a victim of the latest cyber-hazards.
Incident response strategies and plans layout what explains everything starts from the roles and responsibilities of the security team, tools for managing a breach, steps that will need to be taken to address a security incident, how the incident will be investigated and resolved along with the notification requirements following a data breach.
As explained, we can agree to that the lack of incident response plan leaves hole in company’s compliance strategy. Without an incident response plan, businesses can tend to be reactive rather than proactive when data breaches occur.
You might have heard the “with cybersecurity, it isn’t a matter of If, but when” cliché. Unfortunately, the phrase is popular for a simple reason: it’s true. The harsh reality is that at some point in your company’s lifetime, a cyber incident will happen.
Below are the some consequences making us to understand how important Incident Response is:
- Suppose your employee clicked on a malicious attachment, and stealth malware got downloaded onto their computer system. Then it got spread throughout the network, disrupting operations, or exhilarating company’s sensitive data.
- Someone in your organization unintentionally entered their credentials on what appeared to be a legitimate work-related website, which was then used to authenticate into your company’s email server.
- An annoyed employee leaked millions of records containing the entirety of your customers’ sensitive data.
- You Will Be Non-Compliant With Your Industry’s Regulations
- Your Incident-Related Losses Will Increase Dramatically
- Your Shareholders, Vendors, Business Partners, and Customers Won’t Like It
Taking the threats seriously we can go on, but you just need to get the idea: prevention is not a bulletproof strategy, and it doesn’t always play well when one day you see a ransom note pop up on your laptop. The primary goal of incident response is to contain the scope of an incident and minimise the risk to institutional computer systems and data and to return affected systems and data back to an operational state as quickly as possible. Having an incident response plan in place ensures that an organisation follows structured investigation which can take place to provide a targeted response to contain and remediate the threat.