What Should Be Included In A Cyber Incident Response Plan

Protecting your business against cyberattacks involves ensuring that you have in place the different security layers including protecting the network, patching applications, protecting the endpoints, ensuring your data is being properly backed up and your employees are trained so they can act as your human firewall. 

All of the above is very important but there is no 100% guarantee that your business will never be a victim of a breach. That is why developing an incident cyber response plan is essential.

What To Include In A Cyber Incident Response Plan

There are five main aspects when creating a cyber incident response plan. These are Preparation, Detection and Reporting, Analysis, Remediation, and Post-incident Actions. Businesses also need to ensure they are ready to respond across all departments. 

The first response to a cybersecurity incident should be technical. This includes the actions of the technical team to remedy the incident.

Next, is the management’s response. This is management’s actions regarding areas such as finance, public relations, and managing employees.

The third is to control the communications. This includes all communication about the incident whether it is internal or external. Management needs to approve all communications.

Lastly, an organization also needs to prepare a possible legal response. They need to seek legal advice regarding external communications as well as dealing with regulatory bodies. 

The Main Aspects Of A Cyber Incident Response Plan

Preparation

IT teams need to equip themselves with tools that deal with incidents. These could be encryption software, client lists, data backups, and analysis software.

They should run risk assessments on all their systems to determine which are most vulnerable to cyberattacks. They could also use security software to alert them of any suspicious activity on their systems. This will help with early detection.

Detection And Reporting

Organizations need to establish good reporting protocols across all departments. They need to encourage reporting and ensure that employees keep records of any suspicious activity. This can be coupled with access monitoring and multiple reporting platforms.

Analysis

Organizations need to collect data about an incident. It’s important to analyze this data to identify exactly how the incident occurred. By doing so, organizations can put measures in place to prevent it from happening again in the future.

All employees and stakeholders in the organization need to record and timestamp every step from the beginning of the incident to its remediation.

Next, endpoints (user devices) need to be analyzed to determine the scope of the incident.

Remediation

A major part of an incident response plan is how you will solve the problem. Organizations need to remedy the damage done by the cyber incident. Remediation could include IT teams needing to shut down the affected systems so that they can wipe and rebuild the systems.

Post Cyber Incident Actions

Organizations should complete an incident report after remediation. They should amend their security measures to prevent a similar incident in the future and include documentation about the incident.

They also need to update their threat intelligence and ensure that the new security measures are being followed.

Conclusion

When a cybersecurity incident occurs, it’s crucial to know how to respond. As such, organizations need to be prepared by having a cyber incident response plan ready. 

Doing so will ensure that everyone knows what they need to do should a cyber incident occur. 

MicroAge can help create a cyber incident response plan and execute should a cyber incident occur. Contact your local MicroAge to discover how we can help.