Incident Response Planning: Best Practices

Minimize damage, recovery time, and costs when security incidents occur.

Response Lifecycle

Preparation: Plan, team, tools, communication channels, forensic resources Detection & Analysis: Monitor alerts, triage, determine scope/severity, collect evidence Containment: Isolate affected systems, prevent spread, preserve evidence Eradication: Remove malware, close vulnerabilities, eliminate attacker access Recovery: Restore from clean backups, rebuild systems, verify functionality, monitor Post-Incident: Lessons learned, documentation, procedure updates, improvement tracking

Response Team

IR Manager: Coordination, stakeholder communication, resource allocation, decisions Security Analysts: Monitoring, triage, investigation, evidence collection Forensic Specialists: Deep analysis, evidence preservation, malware analysis IT Operations: System isolation, log collection, restoration, infrastructure knowledge Legal Counsel: Compliance, law enforcement coordination, privilege

Incident Classification

Severity Levels: Critical (immediate response), high (1-hour response), medium (4-hour), low (24-hour) Categories: Malware, unauthorized access, data breach, DDoS, insider threat, physical security

Response Procedures

Detailed playbooks for common scenarios: Ransomware, data breach, DDoS, account compromise, insider threat

Communication

Internal: Stakeholders, executives, employees, technical teams External: Customers, media, regulators, law enforcement, partners Templates: Incident declaration, status updates, final reports

Tools & Technology

Detection: SIEM, IDS/IPS, EDR, network monitoring Analysis: Forensic toolkits, malware sandboxes, log analysis Containment: Firewall rules, endpoint isolation, account disablement Documentation: Ticketing systems, collaboration platforms, evidence management

Metrics

Time to detect, time to contain, time to recover Incident count/severity trends, recurring incidents, false positive rates

Testing

Tabletop exercises quarterly, simulations annually, red team engagements

Best Practices

1. Prepare before incidents occur
2. Document everything in real-time
3. Preserve evidence properly
4. Communicate transparently
5. Learn from every incident
6. Test response capabilities regularly
7. Maintain up-to-date playbooks
8. Train team continuously

Bottom Line

Effective incident response requires preparation, practiced procedures, and continuous improvement. Test regularly and learn from every incident.