Cyber Attack Incident Response

Why does the thought of cyber attack incident response scare business owners? Largely it’s because of the technical nature of the events involved and the perceived lack of visibility they have into something they don't easily understand. As a result, many executives wisely invest in a reasonable amount of protection and peace of mind. However, not appreciating the magnitude of cyber warfare is unwise, especially when 96 percent of data breaches are uncovered by third parties (i.e. not internal security teams). Let’s hope that the authorities never tap you on the shoulder like they have so many other companies who were feeling safe behind their firewall and IDS when in reality, the infection had been on their network for over a year. What other steps should we all be taking?

If you have already invested heavily in the latest security initiatives, you may have overlooked basic incident response simply because you thought you had all your bases covered. What is incident response? Gartner says, “Also known as a 'computer incident response plan,' this is formulated by an enterprise to respond to potentially catastrophic, computer-related incidents, such as viruses or hacker attacks.”

Cyber Attack Incident Response Team

An incident response system allows security teams to save all network communications. When IT staff need to investigate an incident, they can filter and report on every flow record down to the exact details, which increases the company’s chances of finding the smoking gun.

Harvard Business Review provides 10 steps that they highly recommend customers take in order to avoid cyber attacks.  The list's guiding principles for a good incidence response plan include assigning upper management individuals to:  

  • Oversee response planning and possible required initiatives
  • Review scenarios to make sure that the response plan is easy to follow and available to the entire organization
  • Ensure that all IT employees are trained, proficient in what to do and expect, and know how to use the incident response system to gather all of the necessary forensic details

You Have a Plan - Now Follow It!

When an event occurs, all cyber attack incident response team members should follow the documented plan. Having detailed instructions on how to fulfill each role forces people into motion toward a common goal. The value of their effort is essential in damage control and cleaning up the event.

Now that you have a plan in place what is the next consideration?  Does your plan need to span the globe? Can it be integrated across business units? 

Put Your Global Incident Response Plan into Action

Thousands of companies all over the world have put their trust into Scrutinizer as a major part of their incident response solution.  With Scrutinizer's user-friendly and simple filters, the IT team will easily be able to use all aspects of the system and gain the full picture of the event using the flows collected from the organization's routers and switches.  With Scrutinizer, your team will be able to perform a global forensic investigation that will isolate the source of the traffic and who received it. It also allows your team to identify unusual traffic patterns throughout the organization, giving you a truly global view.  Forensic incident response to cyber attacks has never been more thorough.  

See how other companies get the forensic details they need and choose Scrutinizer to be a part of your global incident response plan. Get started with a Scrutinizer Evaluation today.