May 31st, 2022 Read Time: 6 minutes
Jessica Farrelly
Jessica is a content writer with more than 8 years of experience covering SaaS and the tech industry. She has worked with both B2B and B2C publications across North America, Europe, and APAC and currently writes about IT Solutions or Electric.
Cyber attacks are an ever-growing threat for businesses of all sizes. While attempted attacks are almost inevitable, there are steps that organizations can take to prevent and mitigate damage as a result. Being prepared is crucial in order to successfully respond to a potential cyber breach, and that means having a documented cybersecurity incident response plan. This article covers the resources, people, and steps that all businesses should include in their cybersecurity incident response planning.
A cybersecurity incident response plan (CIRP) is a written document that outlines the steps a company should take when a cyber attack, data leak, breach, or other security incident occurs. Your incident response plan should include guidelines on how to handle specific attack scenarios, minimize the recovery time needed, protect key infrastructure against further damage, and mitigate the cybersecurity risk.
All of a business’s employees should be familiar with the cybersecurity incident response plan so they are informed of what to do if they detect a suspected attack. Without a defined CIRP in place, your organization is unlikely to respond quickly and effectively to such attacks, and could suffer a wide range of financial, reputational, and legal consequences as a result.
Incident planning enables your organization to take a structured approach to the handling of cyber attacks, data leaks, data breaches, and other security incidents. A CIRP enables you to minimize the recovery time needed, protect key infrastructure against further damages, and mitigate any cybersecurity risk.
When stakeholders know that your organization maintains an updated response plan, they will have higher levels of confidence in the company. The planning process helps you to develop best practices for managing future threats and create relevant communication plans to improve stakeholder trust.
Cybersecurity incident response planning also helps your business to align with regulatory requirements. Industries such as finance and healthcare are particularly strict on issues like data protection, and incident response planning can help you meet your obligations in this area. Examples of such regulations are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Healthcare Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
The final benefit of cybersecurity incident response planning is that your company can greatly reduce operational downtime in the event of an attack. When you maintain a formal approach to the handling of security incidents, you minimize the time it takes to get your systems back online.
Although technology plays a vital role in your cybersecurity incident response, it shouldn’t be relied on to take care of everything. Ideally, you should also bring together knowledgeable professionals who can form an incident response team.
So, who are the people involved in incident planning, and what are their roles? A good cybersecurity incident response team should have a team leader, a lead investigator, a communications lead, a legal representative, and a documentation and timeline lead.
There are six phases involved in a CIRP: preparation, identification, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned. These phases form the foundation of a continuous incident response cycle.
Let’s cover each phase in depth to help build your cybersecurity incident response policy:
Maintaining an updated cybersecurity incident response plan within your company is the first step toward dealing with a cyber attack. If you wait for a breach to occur before thinking about your response, it’s already too late. Electric offers businesses robust cybersecurity at the device, application, and network levels. Get in touch to learn more about protecting your business.