Incident Handling, Incident Response, Threat Intelligence

You may choose to handle incidents on your own as part of your Security Operations Center. In this case we can help you to build and educate your incident response team.

You may also choose to outsource some tasks or job roles to an expert company like us. We offer:

Using our services can bring several benefits to your organization including:

The following gives an overview of some key aspects of incident handling and response:

The Incident Response Team

An incident response team is responsible for identifying, containing, eradicating, and recovering from security incidents. The primary goal of the team is to minimize the impact of the incident on the organization’s operations, assets, and reputation.

The team is responsible for developing and implementing an incident response plan that outlines the processes and procedures to be followed in the event of a security incident.

There are several essential roles within an incident response team that are necessary to ensure a well-coordinated and effective response to security incidents. These roles include:

The Incident Response Life Cycle

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a four-step process for incident response. These four steps are:

Preparation. Preparation is the key to effective incident response. Even the best incident response team cannot effectively address an incident without predetermined guidelines. It involves identifying assets, establishing policies and procedures, and implementing security controls that are designed to detect, prevent, and respond to incidents. Preparation includes:

Detection and Analysis. The detection and analysis step involves identifying potential incidents, analyzing the situation, and determining the scope of the incident. The primary goal of this step is to detect incidents as early as possible and determine their severity and impact.  This step includes the following:

Containment, Eradication, and Recovery. This step involves containing the incident to prevent further damage, eradicating the threat, and recovering any lost or damaged data. It may involve isolating affected systems or networks, disabling user accounts or network access, and restoring data from backups. As the name suggests, it involves:

Post-Incident Activity. This is the final phase of the incident response process. It involves activities that occur after an incident has been successfully resolved. The main goal of this phase is to identify and implement measures that can help prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. Activities include:

The Incident Response Plan

Having an incident response plan is an essential element for responding effectively to security breaches or crises. A well-defined plan empowers teams to take immediate action and minimize the damage caused. Just like emergency responders who undergo regular training and process checks to respond quickly, information security teams should follow their lead. In the event of a security incident, there is no time to waste figuring out response procedures. Having a pre-planned and rehearsed incident response plan becomes crucial.

There’s a great deal of groundwork that can be done ahead of time to reduce complexity and risk during an emergency. A robust incident response plan should include the following elements:

Threat Detection & Hunting

These days organizations understand the importance of safeguarding their valuable data and invest in smart technologies and people to create a defensive shield against potential attacks. However, security is an ongoing process, and there is no guarantee of foolproof protection against breaches. In this context, speed is critical in detecting and neutralizing threats.

A strong security program must have the capability to identify threats quickly and efficiently, preventing attackers from accessing sensitive information. Typically, defensive programs can detect and eliminate most known threats, as they have been encountered before and can be addressed using known tactics. However, organizations must also be equipped to detect unknown threats that may arise from novel techniques or technologies employed by attackers.

Threat Detection involves the use of tools, techniques, and processes to identify potential security incidents in an organization’s network or systems.

Threat Hunting is a proactive approach to identifying security threats that may have gone undetected by traditional security measures. It involves actively searching for signs of compromise within an organization’s network or systems.

Threat Intelligence

Threat intelligence is the process of gathering, analyzing, and sharing information about potential or actual cyber threats, threat actors, and their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to help organizations proactively defend against them. It involves collecting data from various sources such as open-source intelligence, social media, dark web, and other threat feeds, analyzing it to identify patterns and trends, and turning it into actionable intelligence.

The main goal of threat intelligence is to help organizations improve their security posture by identifying and mitigating potential threats before they cause harm. By leveraging threat intelligence, organizations can gain a better understanding of the threat landscape, detect new and emerging threats, and prioritize their response to potential threats.

There are two main types of threat intelligence: strategic and operational. Strategic threat intelligence focuses on high-level, long-term trends and provides organizations with a broader understanding of the overall threat landscape. Operational threat intelligence, on the other hand, focuses on the specific tactics, techniques, and procedures used by threat actors and provides organizations with more granular information about specific threats.