What is Incident Response?

Incident response is the organized approach to addressing and managing the aftermath of a security breach or cyber attack. It's the systematic process that organizations use to handle security incidents, minimize damage, reduce recovery time, and mitigate the costs associated with cyber threats.

At its core, incident response involves identifying, investigating, containing, and recovering from security incidents while documenting lessons learned for future prevention. 

This process requires coordination across multiple teams, clear communication channels, and well-defined procedures that can be executed under pressure. Effective incident response also relies heavily on cyber threat intelligence to understand attackers' tactics and motivations.

As Kev Breen, Senior Director of Cyber Threat Research at Immersive, explains: "Always assume compromise, that you're going to discover the threat actors after they come in. You can invest a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of technology in trying to close every hole. But we've seen the number of zero days, the number of supply chain compromises. It's practically impossible to guarantee they can't get in. So don't focus on trying to close all the holes. Focus on your response when they get in."

This shift in mindset from perfect prevention to effective response reflects the modern reality of cybersecurity. Organizations need robust incident response capabilities to handle the inevitable security incidents they will face.

What is an Incident Response Plan and How to Develop One?

An incident response plan is a documented set of procedures that guides an organization's response to cybersecurity incidents. It serves as a roadmap for security teams, providing clear steps to follow when a security incident occurs.

However, traditional static playbooks have limitations in today's rapidly changing threat landscape. 

Breen notes: "Because of the ever-changing landscape, threat actors are so quick to weaponize new vulnerabilities and TTPs, so you can’t rely on playbooks. They just go out of date. They don't keep pace. And your organizations are going to have changes in technology. You're going to have new technology come in, new people coming, so you can't rely on those."

Key Components of an Effective Incident Response Plan

1. Team Structure and Roles: Define who is responsible for what during an incident. This includes technical responders, management, legal counsel, and communications teams.

2. Communication Procedures: Establish clear communication channels and escalation paths. This includes internal notifications, customer communications, and potential regulatory reporting requirements.

3. Incident Classification: Create a system for categorizing incidents based on severity, type, and potential impact to guide response priorities.

4. Response Procedures: Outline step-by-step procedures for different types of incidents, but build in flexibility for unique situations.

5. Recovery and Continuity Plans: Define how to restore normal operations and maintain business continuity during and after an incident. This includes building cyber resilience capabilities that allow organizations to quickly bounce back from attacks.

6. Documentation Requirements: Specify what information needs to be collected and how it should be documented for legal, regulatory, and learning purposes.

Overview of the Incident Response Life Cycle

The incident response lifecycle provides a framework for managing security incidents from detection through recovery. While various frameworks exist, most follow a similar pattern of preparation, detection, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned. The NIST Computer Security Incident Handling Guide provides comprehensive guidance on implementing these phases effectively.

This lifecycle isn't always linear. Organizations may move back and forth between phases as new information emerges or as the scope of an incident becomes clearer. The key is having a structured approach that can adapt to the specific circumstances of each incident.

Dave Spencer, Director of Technical Product Management at Immersive, emphasizes the importance of preparation: 

"True preparedness is being able to identify and respond to any threat. When you do that in our environment, something falls over? Not a problem. You do that in a production environment, and like any pen tester that you've met has probably taken down a system or two in their time. When that happens, it's quite scary."

What are the Incident Response Steps?

1. Preparation

This phase involves establishing and maintaining an incident response capability. It includes developing policies, training staff, implementing monitoring tools, and conducting regular exercises to test response procedures. The SANS Incident Response Process provides detailed best practices for building effective preparation capabilities.

2. Identification and Detection

The goal is to quickly identify potential security incidents through monitoring systems, user reports, or external notifications. This phase involves determining whether an event constitutes a security incident that requires a formal response.

3. Containment

Once an incident is confirmed, the immediate priority is preventing further damage. This might involve isolating affected systems, blocking malicious network traffic, or disabling compromised accounts.

4. Investigation and Analysis

Teams work to understand the full scope of the incident, including how the attack occurred, what systems were affected, and what data may have been compromised. This phase requires technical expertise and careful documentation.

5. Eradication

Remove the threat from the environment. This includes deleting malware, closing attack vectors, and addressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities that were exploited. Organizations should also implement cyber threat prevention measures to reduce the likelihood of similar incidents occurring in the future.

6. Recovery

Restore affected systems and services to normal operation. This includes validating that systems are clean, implementing additional monitoring, and gradually returning to normal operations.

7. Post-Incident Analysis

Document what happened, what worked well, and what could be improved. This phase is critical for strengthening future incident response capabilities.

What are Security Incidents?

A security incident is any event that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of an organization's information systems or data. Security incidents can range from minor policy violations to major data breaches affecting thousands of customers.

Ben McCarthy, Lead Cyber Threat Intelligence Engineer at Immersive, points out the human element: "A weak security culture can be devastating to an organization because it means that people just aren't upskilled in cybersecurity. They don't understand what a bad phishing email looks like or what a normal email might look like. And they could end up going down the rabbit hole of responding to these attackers and giving them initial access to networks."

Security incidents often involve both technical and human factors. While sophisticated attack techniques grab headlines, many successful attacks still rely on fundamental weaknesses like unpatched systems, weak passwords, or social engineering. Understanding the full spectrum of cyber threats helps organizations prepare for the diverse range of incidents they may face.

Types of Cybersecurity Incidents

Malware Infections

Including ransomware, viruses, trojans, and other malicious software that can disrupt operations, steal data, or provide unauthorized access to systems.

Phishing and Social Engineering Attacks

Attempts to trick users into revealing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise security. Spencer notes: "The top threats will always come back to ransomware and phishing attacks. Not only are they incredibly prevalent, with countless incidents happening and people being compromised frequently, but we're also becoming complacent."

Data Breaches

Unauthorized access to sensitive information, including customer data, intellectual property, or confidential business information.

Insider Threats

Security incidents caused by current or former employees, contractors, or business partners who have authorized access to systems but misuse that access. Insider threats require specialized detection and response procedures since they often involve legitimate credentials and authorized access.

Denial of Service Attacks

Attempts to make systems or services unavailable to legitimate users by overwhelming them with traffic or exploiting vulnerabilities.

Supply Chain Attacks

Incidents that occur through compromised third-party vendors, software, or services that organizations rely on. These attacks can also target application security weaknesses in software development pipelines and deployment processes.

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)

Sophisticated, long-term attacks typically conducted by well-resourced threat actors, often nation-states, targeting specific organizations or sectors.

Who is Responsible for Incident Response?

Incident response is not the sole responsibility of the IT or security team. Effective incident response requires coordination across the entire organization, with different roles playing specific parts in the response process.

Security Operations Center (SOC) Teams: Usually the first responders who detect, analyze, and begin initial containment of incidents.

Incident Response Team: A Specialized team that takes over complex incidents, conducts forensic analysis, and coordinates response activities.

IT Operations: Responsible for system recovery, implementing security patches, and maintaining business continuity.

Legal and Compliance: Handles regulatory reporting requirements, evidence preservation, and legal implications of incidents.

Communications and Public Relations: Manages internal and external communications, including customer notifications and media relations.

Executive Leadership: Makes strategic decisions about business continuity, resource allocation, and external communications.

Matt Parven, Principal Cybersecurity Engineer at Immersive, emphasizes cross-team coordination: "When an incident happens, it doesn't matter whether you're an executive or whether you're an incident responder. It's important to work as one team. That's how you reduce your time to remediate whatever that attack or whatever that vulnerability is."

Why Is Incident Response Important for Organizations?

Minimizing Business Impact

Quick, effective response reduces downtime, limits data loss, and helps maintain customer trust. The longer an incident persists, the more damage it can cause to both systems and reputation.

Regulatory Compliance

Many industries have specific requirements for incident response capabilities and reporting timelines. Having a robust incident response program helps organizations meet these obligations. For example, organizations subject to regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS must follow specific incident notification requirements. The CISA Incident Response Guide provides detailed guidance for federal agencies that can be adapted by private organizations.

Preserving Evidence

Proper incident response procedures help preserve evidence that may be needed for legal proceedings, insurance claims, or law enforcement investigations.

Learning and Improvement

Each incident provides valuable insights into security weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. Organizations that effectively analyze incidents can strengthen their overall security posture.

Cost Management

While incident response requires investment, the cost of a well-managed response is typically much lower than the cost of an uncontrolled incident that spirals into a major breach.

Breen explains the importance of having the right capabilities: "Are we able to respond? Do we have the right policy? Do we have the right process? Do we have the right people with the supporting technology to be able to respond to any threat? That's the key."

Why Do Organizations Need To Analyze and Document Incidents?

Regulatory and Legal Requirements

Many regulations require organizations to document incidents and report them to authorities within specific timeframes. Proper documentation ensures compliance and provides necessary evidence for legal proceedings.

Insurance Claims

Cyber insurance policies often require detailed documentation of incidents to process claims. Organizations need to demonstrate the scope of damage, response actions taken, and recovery costs.

Improving Security Posture

Post-incident analysis helps identify security gaps, process weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement. This information is valuable for strengthening defenses against future attacks.

Knowledge Sharing

Documented incidents provide valuable learning materials for training staff and sharing threat intelligence with industry partners and law enforcement.

Trend Analysis

Over time, incident documentation helps organizations identify patterns, recurring issues, and emerging threats that might not be apparent from individual incidents. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) publishes annual reports that help organizations understand broader cybercrime trends affecting their industries.

McCarthy highlights the cultural aspect: "One of the other issues of a security culture is that when they do this, they don't then report it because they're worried that they're going to get a slap on the wrist or that they're going to get reprimanded when actually what security teams want is for you to report it so they can go and do their job and protect the organization."

List of Top Incident Response Tools and Platforms

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Tools

Platforms like Splunk, IBM QRadar, and Microsoft Sentinel collect and analyze security events across the organization, helping identify potential incidents.

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Solutions

Tools such as CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne, and Microsoft Defender provide detailed visibility into endpoint activities and can automatically respond to threats.

Network Security Monitoring Tools

Solutions like Zeek, Suricata, and commercial platforms from vendors such as Palo Alto Networks help monitor network traffic for suspicious activity.

Forensic Analysis Tools

Specialized tools such as EnCase and FTK, as well as open-source alternatives such as Autopsy, help investigators analyze digital evidence.

Threat Intelligence Platforms

Services that provide information about current threats, indicators of compromise, and threat actor tactics, techniques, and procedures.

Communication and Collaboration Tools

Secure communication platforms that enable incident response teams to coordinate activities, share information, and document response actions.

Backup and Recovery Solutions

Systems that enable quick restoration of compromised data and systems, supporting the recovery phase of incident response.

Vulnerability Management Tools

Platforms that help identify and prioritize security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers.

The key to effective incident response isn't just having the right tools, but ensuring that teams know how to use them effectively under pressure. 

As Spencer notes: "When you're working as a team, you're out in the open, so you're collaborating. If you're the person sitting in the corner contributing nothing, or worse than that, is talking over people and distracting from the investigation, that isn’t the best way to handle the situation. We see that a lot more than the skills gap."

Organizations need to regularly test their incident response capabilities through exercises and simulations to ensure teams can work effectively together when real incidents occur. This preparation is what separates organizations that can quickly contain and recover from incidents from those that struggle with prolonged, costly breaches.

Effective incident response is not about having perfect defenses – it's about being prepared to respond quickly and effectively when those defenses inevitably fail. Organizations that invest in comprehensive incident response capabilities, regular training, and continuous improvement will be better positioned to handle the cybersecurity challenges they face.