How an Incident Response Plan Can Save Your Company
No company is 100% secure from a cyberattack.
You’ve no doubt seen some of the biggest companies in the world, including Yahoo, Facebook, Adobe and more, suffer data breaches and had their users’ email addresses, passwords and even payment information stolen and posted on public forums.
However, big corporations are not the only businesses susceptible to cyberattacks. In fact, according to the 2023 Business Impact Report from the Identity Theft Resource Center, 73% of small business owners reported a cyberattack in 2023.
An incident response plan ensures both technical and nontechnical parties understand their roles and responsibilities in a crisis.
A managed service provider or your IT staff should help you implement an incident response plan to effectively prepare, identify, contain, eliminate, recover and learn from all cyberattacks.
What is an Incident Response Plan?
An incident response plan is a list of steps an MSP/IT staff will take in the event of a cyberattack. The plan contains specific directions for specific attack scenarios and what must be done after the threat has been contained and eliminated to reduce the chance of another attack happening.
For example, if a phishing attack was successful at stealing an employee’s password, the incident response should prioritize forcing log outs everywhere for that account before resetting the password. If there was a ransomware attack, the first step would be isolating any affected devices from the rest of the network. Different types of attacks require different response plans.
An incident response plan ensures your response team chooses the shortest path to safety. Since speed is the key when attempting to contain an attack, locking down should happen first before the victim is notified. It disrupts work but prioritizes safety. There’s no sense in wasting time telling you a breach is taking place when that time could be spent isolating the threat.
“Incident Response Plans keep you safe and efficient. Without an incident response plan, it’s possible a company doesn’t effectively contain the threat or recover from the attack.”
What are the Steps of An Incident Response Plan?
A general incident response plan contains five steps to provide an effective and timely response.
Preparation: Perform a risk assessment and prioritize the most sensitive assets. A list of roles will be maintained for the incident response team so all necessary parties know their responsibilities.
Detection and Containment: An incident either is detected automatically or manually. Whether it’s unusual files found on a computer or unexplained new accounts, an MSP/IT staff will determine the legitimacy of the event. After detection, the threat is contained to minimize the impact on business operations. Containment involves disabling user accounts or disconnecting servers from the network.
Investigation and Analysis: This is the point where you decide if you are making a claim with cybersecurity insurance. Insurance providers will have a team of professional incident responders who will take over from here. If you forego insurance, your incident response team will need to understand the scope and impact of the incident. This includes identifying the impact type, severity of impact and type of information. Relevant logs will be collected to ensure events are not lost, backups of data and systems will be retained, and witnesses and those affected will be interviewed. The incident response team reviews the collected evidence to develop a timeline of events. A root cause analysis will help the team identify system and process failures that contributed to the event.
Eradication and Recovery: Once the investigation is complete and the root cause has been determined, any malware or threats will be removed. If a vulnerability was exploited, it should be patched immediately. Any affected operating systems or applications may need to be reinstalled, and systems or data from a clean backup will be restored.
Post-incident Review: The final step in the process involves reviewing the incident response process by evaluating the incident and actions performed. The incident response team will compile the lessons learned, noting where the response team was effective and areas that require improvement. Any possible security risks derived from the root cause analysis should be fixed.
Why is an Incident Response Plan Important?
Incident Response Plans keep you safe and efficient. Without an incident response plan, it’s possible a company doesn’t effectively contain the threat or recover from the attack.
Cyberattacks not only cost companies money, but they result in days of downtime spent recovering from an incident. The national average of interrupted days due to a ransomware attack is about 20 days.
Some data breaches cripple a company so badly they are forced to close permanently. Cybercrime Magazine found 60% of small businesses go out of business within six months of a data breach.
Be Prepared with an Incident Response Plan
Are you looking to implement an incident response plan for your company? Contact us here to see how we can help keep your business running smoothly while increasing productivity, security and profitability.
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