Incident Management

Responding to a hack or cyber breach effectively requires the right technology. Here are the top 10 incident management tools for your organization.

An incident response tabletop exercise is the equivalent of a cybersecurity fire drill. In the digital era, it’s not a matter of if your organization will be a target of a cyber-attack, it’s a matter of when. CNBC reported that in 2018 cybercrime cost as much as $600 billion annually, approaching 1% of the world’s GDP. Cybercrime is a pandemic with repercussions that could drive organizations to early retirement. 

No matter how proactive a company’s approach is to its cybersecurity practices, chances are they will be the target of a cyber-attack. Statistics show that it’s not a question of if one occurs, but when. This is where Incident Response Tabletop exercises come in.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) developed and released a series of agile incident management processes in the ITIL version 4. This most recent version discusses the 5 steps you should be following throughout an incident management lifecycle:

1. Incident identification
2. Incident logging
3. Incident categorization
4. Incident prioritization
5. Incident response

Overall, incident management is the process of addressing IT service disruptions and restoring the services according to established service level agreements (SLAs). What starts with a user reporting an issue should ideally end with the service desk fixing the issue as fast as possible.

Everyday the threat landscape evolves, and your organization has to adapt or die. Preparing for the onslaught of attacks that occur on a daily basis is fundamental to that adaptation. A well thought out, rehearsed plan allows your organization to counter new technologies and methodologies in the hands of hackers. This plan is formally called a Computer Security Incident Response Plan (CSIRP), and every company must have one. In fact, if your organization does business with the government, such as working for the DoD, it is a legal requirement.

Detecting security events quickly is one of the most important aspects of network security for most companies. Without a full-spectrum overview of all cyber activity, it can be nearly impossible to coordinate defenses and take down threats on the spot. Thankfully, companies can implement a security incident management plan to effectively handle these types of security events if they should arise.

Companies across all sectors realize the importance of using technology to both attract and retain customers. However, with technological integration, new cybersecurity threats are emerging every day endangering mobile messaging apps, online banking, and basically every industry. Consequently, it’s important that enterprises establish an incident response plan to deal with minor and major security threats. Despite these threats, a 2018 IBM report found that 77 percent of respondents did not have a consistent incident response plan to deploy in the event of a security breach! 

Preparing for cyber incidents involves more than merely being ready to react
to (and neutralize) a one-off cyber attack. It involves the ability to respond effectively, plan proactively, and to defend your critical systems and data assets. To get ahead of evolving threats, and to recover thoroughly when attacks do occur, you need to be familiar with the Cyber Incident Management Life Cycle.

Cyber incidents can run the gamut, from a simple email phishing attack to sophisticated malware or ransomware. Organizations now are investing more than ever in cyber-incident and attack preparedness, with 74% of companies saying Best Practices for incident prevention are their number one cybersecurity priority, followed by compliance mandates at a close second. A major part of this investment in readiness is the Incident Management Lifecycle, which lays out a framework of event management and how companies should respond in the event of an attack, hack, or breach.

But what exactly is the incident response lifecycle? What are the various stages in the life cycle of incident management, and what specific elements, steps, and processes do they entail?  Read on to learn about the incident management lifecycle process, and how it can be used to protect your business.

Although you might think that your cyber defenses are virtually impenetrable, every organization needs a plan just in case a cyber attack or breach does in fact happen. That’s exactly why you need to formulate, and continually test, a detailed cybersecurity incident response plan.