Cyber crime is now become a focal point for many organizations and security firm. The cost of damage is equal to nearly 1% of many countries’ GDP. After spending huge amount to overcome from cyber crime damage, enterprises still not reached to its final destination to solve it completely. However, cyber crime concept is divided in two segments, for example, pre cyber security planning and post cyber incident planning. If we look at pre planning, then it is sad to say that many companies still ignoring cyber security and count it as a technology issue. As a result, such companies become the target of cyber crime and suffer a huge amount of data loss. Now if we consider on post planning named Cyber security Incident response (IR) plan that requires immediate response to affected assets. In this piece of information, we will discuss about Cyber security Incident Plan in detail.
Shortfalls of Cyber Security Incident Response Plan (CSIRP):
Cyber security Incident plan helps to limit the further damage, find the cause of damage, decrease recovery time & costs, and enhance stakeholders’ confidence. However, many organizations have little readiness about response plans. Some shortfalls are:
- Key decision makers are deprived from IR Plan
- Obsolete plan documentation
- Improper guidance to specific level in organizations
- Improper integration across business units
Fortunately, these deficiencies can be covered by an effective IR plan based on a framework intended for risk classification, decision-making, and growth paths across the entire business.
Components of IR Plan:
Before making a cyber security incident response plan, organizations have to look at its essential parts like its incident classification, data classification, operating roles etc. Organizations cannot make an effective incident plan without essential components. The essential components of Incident Response plan are:
Incident Classification:
When an organization face any cyber attack, its classification is necessary to gauge the taxonomy of a cyber incident. According to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), incident categories can be classified in many ways starting from unauthorized access, DDoS, malicious code, illegal usage, buffer overflow, spoofing network, MITM attack, etc. Such classification will help security intelligence to share data and keeps their communication vigorous between organization and security department.
Data Classification:
To bring out effective response process, data classification is vital in incident response plan as it will measure the type of compromised data in a particular cyber attack. For example, the compromised data may be of customer’s confidential information or a critical intellectual property. Data theft makes a huge impact on business in every business aspects. The exposed data classification will help to make an efficient IR plan.
Define Operating Roles:
A team structure should be plotted while designing an incident response plan for example, roles and responsibility of an individual, escalation process, role of executive leaders, etc. The operating roles and responsibility should be tied with the data classification. It is a good idea to exercise both a written explanation and diagram to depict the incident response process. Defining role and responsibility in IR plan will help response team to carry out easily their task and speed up the response plan effectively.
Recovering Systems: Recuperation of the System:
After assessing the loss caused due to cyber attack, it is sensible to reinstall the damaged files or systems from the trusted source (i.e. security backups). Rearrange services in their preference basis at the time of restarting the system. Provide prior notification to all relevant parties at the time of restoring the system. After restoring a system, review the response plan and policies on regular basis to make your security strategy robust.
At last, an effectual cyber security incident plan will help to improve decision making power and internal & external coordination among IT and security department. Strong response plan will help to mitigate potential loss and focus on minor points that are overlooked in major incidents. A well-prepared incident response plan will bring confidence back in mindset of customers, shareholders, and regulators.
