Cyber ​​attacks: 5 steps to deal with security incidents

Every organization is prone to cyber attacks and, when it happens, there is a small line between rescuing your network security and getting infected by malicious threats. Every second of precautionary measures counts to prevent the rapid spread of an attack. As of now, many companies, including businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises, are increasingly aware of the need to develop a cyber security incident response plan to deal with attacks. Having a contingency plan in place after an incident will reduce costs and not damage a company's reputation. Indeed, there are many things to consider that need to be matched in order for a response to the incident to run smoothly. Some organizations, especially those that have not encountered cyber threats, do not know where to start, let alone what to prioritize, and therefore often seek out certified event handlers for assistance.

What is incident response in cyber attacks?

A security incident is a warning that there may be data breaches on your computer. Sometimes, the warning could also be that your security breach has already occurred. A computer security incident can also be considered a threat to your relevant computer policies. Examples of computer security threats / incidents include malicious attacks, which include viruses and worms.

How should you respond to a security incident?

The event response lifecycle consists of five vital steps in handling events. For incident response to be successful, security teams must follow a well-organized approach to any live event.

What are the five steps of an incident response?

The five steps of responding to events are summarized below:

Step 1: Preparation

Preparation is vital for an effective response to incidents. Even the best security teams cannot deal with a security breach without pre-defined instructions. Therefore, a sound plan must be available in advance to take care of any event that may occur at some point. Preparing is the first step in dealing with a security attack.

Get the right people with great experience. Designate an IRS team leader who will be responsible for each activity. The leader must communicate directly with the management team to make critical decisions with immediate effect.

Step 2: Identification

The focus of this step is to monitor, identify, notify and report any security incidents that have occurred.

The incident response team should be able to identify the source of the breach. Your IR team needs to understand the various event indicators, such as anti-malware programs, file integrity checkers, system and network administrators, and more.

Step 3: Path and analysis

A lot of work is being done at this stage. Many resources must be used to obtain data from tools and systems for further analysis and identification of breach indicators. In this step, a team should have in-depth skills and knowledge of live incident responses.

Until the incident is resolved, it is difficult to determine the extent of the damage. Therefore, analyze the cause of the event. take the incident seriously and respond quickly.

Step 4: Limit

Restriction is one of the most critical steps in responding to incidents. The methods used in this step are based solely on the intelligence and breach indicators obtained during the testing and analysis step. The limitation also has to do with reducing the damage of an event and isolating the affected systems in a network.

Once the IR team detects an incident, it should be limited. Restricting the incident may include disabling network access to the internet so that infected computers are quarantined. You may also need to reset the passwords of the affected users.

Step 5: Activity after the incident

This step includes properly documenting the information used to prevent similar future events.

It is necessary to notify the affected parties in order to protect them from leaks from the leakage of personal or financial data.

Learn from the incident so that future cyber-attacks do not recur. You need to take action after the event, such as teaching employees how to avoid phishing scams and adding technologies that can manage and track threats.

These 5 steps are critical to dealing with security incidents within an organization.