An incident response plan is an important document that empowers your organisation to respond to any threats quickly and efficiently, with as little downtime and disruption as possible. It can also help you learn from previous mistakes, so you can navigate any future attacks with ease.
Your plan should include the following key information:
- How your organisation defines an incident
- Key personnel for dealing with any incidents, including their contact details
- Details of who will analyse and follow up the incident after the event
- How your organisation will collect evidence
- What procedures you have in place to get services back up and running
- Any regulatory/legal requirements your organisation must abide by
Before putting the document together, it’s essential that you have a sound understanding of your organisational structure and computer systems. You’ll need to know how and where your data is stored (Cloud, on-premise or a hybrid of the two) and what security tools and policies you already have in place. Having this information readily available to you – and any other key personnel involved in managing your data – will make it much easier to conduct a full investigation and provide information about how and when any incidents arise.
If you don’t have this information to hand, it will take far longer to find out what happened, greatly increasing the cost of any investigations and downtime in the process. You may have to call in security professionals, who then have to meticulously explore every minute detail to track down the root of the problem…digging even further into your expenditure or burning through your insurance coverage.
The Importance of Good Consultants
If you’re dealing with an incident, it’s easy to rush into finding a security consultant who can quickly put out the fire on your behalf, instead of wading through a load of IT security issues you’re not familiar or comfortable with.
However, as is so often the case, prevention is always better than cure when it comes to these things. So, it’s preferable to already have a carefully selected provider on board beforehand. A decent incident response professional will want to know how your organisation works and adapt their work in accordance with your individual needs. You’ll need to know they’re flexible, available to work remotely or on site and have a strong background in IT security.
Good Planning Saves Money
IT is a big investment, so you’ll also need to invest in protecting it. It’s easy for businesses to take a risk with their incident response procedures, seeing it as just another thing to spend money on that probably won’t even be necessary. While it’s true that if your organisation has some good security software in place and your staff are properly trained in cyber security awareness your risks will be significantly lower, that’s still no guarantee. New threats are being uncovered every second, and even the most diligent people still make mistakes from time to time. By investing a bit of extra time and money in a robust incident response strategy, you can avoid huge costs and disruptions further down the line.
Back Ups are Vital
One of the biggest mistakes organisations make in terms of data protection is failing to perform (and test) regular back-ups. These play a vital role in protecting your organisation from cyber incidents like ransomware attacks, and hugely minimise the impact of any that do manage to break through. It’s sensible to keep your data backed up in the Cloud and have it regularly reviewed and monitored 24/7. System back-ups should also be tested for restore speeds, so you have peace of mind that no matter what happens, you can recover your vital information quickly and easily.
If you’re relying on a third-party cloud provider, incident response should be included in your contract. Make sure you have this in place before you begin and you’re happy with how they store and manage your data. If in doubt, don’t be afraid to ask for details and evidence.
How Actisoft Can Help You
As specialists in cyber security, we’re well versed in ensuring you have robust incident report plans and helping all sorts of organisations keep their business-critical data safe. We believe in working proactively, rather than reactively, so data issues never have to turn into big problems. Contact us today to find out more.
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