Cyber crime could cost the world $23 trillion by 2027 according to a top US cybersecurity official, up from $$8.4 trillion in 2022.
Effective incident response becomes vitally important as security incidents become more frequent, cause more damage, and deal greater losses.
In practice, that starts long before the incident arrives, and it continues after containment and eradication has happened.
The incident response steps to follow are collectively known as the incident response lifecycle, and it’s the cornerstone of any computer security strategy since stopping attacks in progress is the last line of defense.
Vulnerabilities are increasing as companies adopt more technology, and hackers have been eagerly exploiting them, making incidents inevitable for all companies. Having an incident response plan and continuously improving the incident response lifecycle are the only ways to maintain business continuity in the face of these relentless cyber risks. This article explains how.
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What Is The Security Incident Response Lifecycle?
The security incident response lifecycle includes the five phases of incident response, each of which are essential for minimizing breach damage and accelerating time to recovery.
Slightly different lifecycles exist depending on the framework, but the most common is the NIST incident response lifecycle, which is covered extensively in the next section.
5 Phases Of The Security Incident Response Lifecycle
Responding to security incidents requires a systematic effort incorporating many systems, stakeholders, and security controls.
To keep things organized and standardized, the security incident lifecycle was developed, which outlines the 5 crucial IR steps for how to respond to any and every cyber incident:
- Preparation
- Detection And Analysis
- Containment
- Eradication And Recovery
- Post-Event Activity
Each of these phases is equally important, neglecting any of them compromises the whole process, and the lifecycle starts immediately back at the beginning once the final phase ends.
Phase 1: Preparation
By some estimates, a cyber attack happens every 39 seconds, and it averages only 62 minutes after gaining network access for attacks to “breakout” and move laterally. Speed matters in incident response, and acting quickly and decisively requires preparation in advance.
That’s why the incident response lifecycle begins with preparing for incidents by doing things like cataloging IT assets, assessing security threats, equipping incident response teams, and fine-tuning plans.
This phase starts long before the incident first arrives.
Companies need to always be prepared for the inevitable next cybersecurity attack by planning, prioritizing, and provisioning. Incident response plans detail all the steps teams will take during an attack to bring it to an end.
This is the time to be developing, evaluating, and improving those plans and putting resources (tools, talent, policies) in place to support them. Never forget that incident response is continuous even if incidents are (hopefully) occasional.
Phase 2: Detection And Analysis
It takes 194 days on average to detect a cyber attack, yet for the majority of security teams (70%), up to 75% of the alerts they receive on a daily basis are false.
The second phase of the incident response lifecycle is about accurately detecting inbound attacks as early and consistently as possible.
Upon seeing indicators of compromise, the incident response team collects data to understand the type of attack, the method of infiltration, and the potential cyber damage it could cause if containment and eradication are not successful.
Effective incident response depends on seeing the earliest evidence of threats in the attack surface by collecting, integrating, and analyzing data from many different sources: network traffic logs, application logs, endpoint information, system logs, threat intelligence, and more.
More data translates into superior detection.
Speed has a similar result. With quick detection and immediate response, it may be possible to act early enough to prevent or mitigate damage.
Resources such as a security incident severity matrix help responders avoid wasting time by picking their priorities. Important as moving quickly may be, it’s just as important to collect and preserve digital evidence, both to aid with the containment and eradication phases and for compliance/legal purposes.
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Phase 3: Containment
The average security team takes 64 days to contain a breach, yet there are big benefits for moving faster; containing a breach in under 30 days saves $1 million compared to breaches that last longer.
Phase 3 in the incident response lifecycle focuses on the containment of attacks that bypass defense and penetrate assets.
That involves taking steps to prevent the attack from spreading to other systems or affecting additional targets by, for example, disconnecting from networks or quarantining infected assets.
Incident response teams must move rapidly to contain a threat so it can’t move through a network or reach its intended target—but they cannot move so quickly that they fail to contain everything or cause unnecessary business disruptions in the process.
Data from the previous incident response steps proves especially important here.
Security teams with a more complete, accurate, and early understanding of the attacks they face have more context for how to approach containment. As such, don’t rush through investigation and analysis in the haste to bring attacks to an end.
Phase 4: Eradication And Recovery
More than one company has been forced to close in the wake of a cyber attack, emphasizing that even if the attack comes to an end, full recovery may not be quick, easy, or guaranteed.
The fourth phase in the incident response lifecycle handles the removal of the incident and recovery from the damage.
Contained attacks need to be prevented from causing continued or repeat problems. Eradicating them by doing things like deleting malware and disabling breached accounts ensures the threat is fully neutralized.
At the same time, IR teams need to diagnose and mitigate any vulnerabilities that get exploited.
After eradication comes recovery, when all the affected assets are restored to their pre-incident state by accessing data backups or creating new accounts. It may also be necessary to rebuild systems or replace compromised files, which can turn recovery into a lengthy process.
A robust incident response plan helps to expedite recovery while maintaining a cautious approach.
Phase 5: Post-Event Activity
Up to 67% of companies that fall victim to a cyber attack have it happen again within one year after recovery. In some cases, they even fall victim to the same attack a second time.
In the fifth and final phase of the incident response lifecycle, companies work to make themselves more resilient than they were before the incident.
That starts by reviewing the details of the incident to understand exactly what path the attack took, what vulnerabilities it exploited, and how the security teams and tools responded at every step.
Being thorough and objective leads to an honest assessment of strengths and weaknesses, which is why some companies enlist third parties to get an unbiased perspective.
Following that incident review comes a period of change and improvement, where companies strengthen their IT infrastructure, put different tools in place, change their tactics or techniques, or update the incident response plan.
As those changes start to take shape and go into effect, the incident response lifecycle starts again at the preparation phase. Learning from the last attack leads seamlessly to preparing for the next attack.
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How Small Businesses Can Improve Incident Response
Small businesses stand to lose as much or more than larger companies in a cyber attack, yet they have fewer resources—team, tools, time, money—to spend on cybersecurity.
So how can SMBs improve the incident response process?
Follow the steps outlined below, and consider working with a virtual CISO to quickly and affordably bring IR expertise and NIST compliance onboard.
Create An Incident Response Plan
Nothing improves the NIST incident response process more than having it carefully planned out in advance. Include in the incident response plan the roles and responsibilities for each responder, the chain of command and communication, all procedures and policies to follow, and the playbooks and contingencies for every scenario.
Plans should be as detailed as possible—but just as important as making comprehensive plans is reviewing and updating them regularly. IT, employees, frameworks, and cyber risks all change, and the IR plan needs to update each time. Make sure that happens by building into the plan a schedule and strategy for (at least) annual improvements.
Select A Framework
Though we have focused here on the NIST incident response lifecycle, groups like ISO and SANS have developed incident response frameworks of their own. All the frameworks are similar in many ways, identifying various incident response phases to follow in a cyclical fashion, but the number of phases varies. Use the right framework, along with an incident response template, to make the right choices in less time.
Develop Security Policies
Security policies are essential for preventing incidents from starting and, when they do, keeping the damage in check by helping to organize and orchestrate the response. Much like incident response plans, incident response policies provide broad guidance for what responders and employees should do before, during, and after an incident.
Perhaps the most important policy of all is around data backups, which are key for limiting the damage and duration of incidents, but this is just one example. Other policies will dictate where/how to report incidents, how to escalate, and what data and documentation to save, among others. Use this incident response checklist to aid with policy making.
Create An Incident Response Strategy
While similar to incident response plans and policies, an incident response strategy aligns how companies react to attacks with their broader cybersecurity strategy and risk tolerance. Important as incident response may be, it’s just one facet of staying secure, keeping compliant, and managing cyber risk.
Thinking holistically about how incident response affects overall cybersecurity helps the constituent parts coordinate better. It can also reveal where resources may be missing or stretched thin, leaving cybersecurity compromised as a result.
Partner With A Managed Security Provider
Managed security providers offers the tools, skills, and 24/7/365 coverage that many companies are missing from their incident response process—often at a lower overall cost than handling everything-house. That makes managed incident response a great option for companies that lack expertise and bandwidth, or that want an affordable enterprise solution.
Companies with compliance and regulation requirements or unique cyber risks also benefit from the expertise and attention of a provider. Learn more about evaluating incident response services.
Incident Management Tips
After countless cyber incidents, some tips have emerged to make the incident response lifecycle run more successfully:
- Don’t Panic: Incidents get more stressful as they progress further, but keep calm. Rely on plans, policies, preparations, and providers to keep security incident management running smoothly.
- Automate Widely: Improve the speed and scale of incident response by integrating and automating as many processes as possible. Automation particularly helps during the detection, analysis, and containment phases.
- Have a Team: Rely on an incident response team made up of internal employees or outsourced experts. There are many roles and responsibilities to handle at all phases of the incident response lifecycle, and the better the team the better the response.
- Pick a Leader: Assign someone to be the incident commander and take the lead throughout the incident response effort. They will make the final decisions, set the tone and strategy, and take responsibility for the results.
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How PurpleSec Helps Simplify Incident Response For Small Businesses
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Article by
Joshua is a diversely-skilled cybersecurity professional with over a decade of cybersecurity experience previously working for the Department of Defense.
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