Common Mistakes in Cyber Incident Response Planning

 

With the average cost of a data breach placed at $3.8 million, you would expect companies to focus on continuous threat detection and rapid response. Having an incident response plan in place is critical to prepare your organization in the event of a data breach or other cybersecurity incident. Fine-tuning, and practicing your incident response plan is also crucial to being prepared for any cybersecurity incident.

What is an incident response plan for cyber security? Learn how to manage a data breach with the 6 phases in the incident response plan.

An incident response plan is a documented, written plan with 6 distinct phases that help IT professionals and staff recognize and deal with a cybersecurity incident like a data breach or cyber attack. Properly creating and managing an incident response plan involves regular updates and training.

Addressing 4 common incident response mistakes

 1. Not Conducting Complete Cyber Forensic Analysis :

Conducting thorough and complete root cause and forensics analysis can be missed in the heat of battle, with management demanding a return to safe operations as quickly as possible. Businesses often use a multilayered data management, data governance, and network security strategy to keep proprietary information secure. Having data that's well managed and safe can help streamline the forensic process should that data ever come under investigation. In today’s technology-driven generation, the importance of cyber forensics is immense. Technology combined with forensic forensics paves the way for quicker investigations and accurate results.

2. Lack of Incident Response Plan :

An incident response plan contains a detailed plan of action on how to handle potential security incidents. For each particular scenario, this includes measures that have to be undertaken by employees, isolating affected areas, recovery systems to be put in place, and so forth. These pre-planned steps will help an organization minimize its response time to a large extent. A delayed response means that the malicious agent within an organization’s networks and systems has a more severe impact. A proper incident response process allows your organization to minimize losses, patch exploitable vulnerabilities, restore affected systems and processes, and close the attack vector that was used. Having an Incident Response Plan (IRP) truly matters. The IRP should not be approached lightly; it should describe in detail what your organization will do in case of a cybersecurity incident in a way that is useful in a crisis.

3. No third-party agencies:

There may be instances where a company will not be able to handle a data breach simply with in-house staff. Therefore, it is advisable to bring in external agencies that are more equipped to handle data breaches. In addition to this, these agencies also have more experience in mitigating such attacks meaning that the company may not lose a drastic amount of data.

4. Your Business Plan Doesn’t Include an IT Plan:

Create a roadmap for your technology (IT strategy) needs that you will review annually (or sooner depending on business growth). When budgeting for technology, be sure to consider the total cost of ownership (TCO), not just the purchase price of the hardware, software, or services you buy.

Final Thoughts:

Business owners need to understand that there are basic principles every organization must adhere to in order to ensure it's safe from cyber attacks. Making smart technology decisions is easy—if you are aware of the common cybersecurity mistakes to avoid.