What is Incident Response & How It Works

In the U.S., we all know to dial 911 in the event of an emergency.

Calling 911 puts you in touch with an operator who can quickly assess your situation and coordinate the appropriate response. If there’s a fire, operators dispatch your local fire department. If it’s a health-related emergency, they dispatch an ambulance. And law enforcement is alerted and dispatched for any situation that requires it.

To minimize losses and enable swift recovery efforts, 911 operators and first responders follow a structured approach when managing and responding to incidents. This same principle applies to cybersecurity incident response, where a well-organized plan is essential to containing threats, reducing damage, and restoring business operations.

What Is a Security Incident?

A cybersecurity incident refers to an unexpected event involving the compromise of digital assets. Common examples of security incidents include unauthorized access to data and the disruption of services. Bad actors may also withhold an organization’s data and exploit it for financial gain through tactics like extortion.

A security incident is an emergency that’s no different from a natural disaster or health crisis. Beyond the immediate impact, victims of a security incident incur server costs and experience reputational damage and disruptions to business operations.

What Is Incident Response and How Does it Work? 

Incident response is a structured approach for managing the aftermath of a cybersecurity incident. The goal of incident response is to address the event in a way that minimizes damage, reduces recovery time and costs, and restores operations as quickly as possible.

Incident response involves a coordinated effort from various stakeholders, often including insurance carriers, privacy attorneys, and security and digital forensic professionals. Stakeholders from the organization must collaborate to create an incident response strategy that outlines steps for containing and eradicating threats. Once an organization detects a threat, they can activate the plan to guide their containment and recovery efforts.

Why Is Incident Response Important?

Every organization needs a comprehensive incident response plan. Without one, falling victim to a cyberattack can lead to prolonged recovery times, significant data loss, and reputational damage.

On the other hand, a swift and effective response can significantly reduce the impact of a security incident by coordinating communication efforts and quickly containing the threat to prevent it from further spreading. These efforts help reduce data loss and support faster business recovery.

Incident Response Lifecycle

Understanding the basic incident response lifecycle can help teams manage cybersecurity incidents more effectively. The lifecycle typically includes the following stages:

• Preparation: Setting up an incident response team and creating a strategy that details the steps to take in the event of an attack.

• Identification: Detecting and reporting potential security incidents. Specialized solutions and services like managed detection and response (MDR) are designed to monitor and identify incidents before they become a larger threat.

• Containment: Limiting the scope and magnitude of the incident by implementing short-term fixes while preparing for full remediation.

• Eradication: Identifying and eliminating the root cause of the incident (e.g., disabling compromised accounts or removing malware from infected systems).

• Recovery: Restoring systems and operations by bringing them back online and ensuring they are secure.

• Lessons learned: Reviewing the incident and how the team handled it to improve responses to future incidents. This phase often involves revising the organization’s incident response strategy.

Key Steps of an Incident Response Plan

Redpoint reimagined the traditional incident response lifecycle with our unique REACT process. Our approach prioritizes a swift and organized initial response that aims to achieve containment as quickly as possible.

Step #1: Respond

The response phase begins with the victim initiating communication with first responders — similar to dialing 911 in an emergency. The incident response plan must include who to contact first and how to reach them. This step also establishes who, beyond first responders, should be involved in determining the scope of the incident.

Step #2: Engage

During this phase, the response team evaluates the extent of the initial loss by determining the scope and nature of the incident. This step is comparable to how a 911 operator evaluates a situation to dispatch the correct resources and personnel. The scope determines which assets — e.g., people, systems, networks, and data — may have been compromised. The nature of the incident identifies how the incident impacted these resources. This analysis helps the response team establish an agreed-upon approach to mitigate the attack and initial actions they will take.

Step #3: Assemble

The assemble phase begins in parallel with the engage phase. Responding to cyber incidents typically involves pre-configuring security tools, which can be completed even if the full scope of the incident has not been 100% identified. In this step, it’s also crucial to establish an ongoing communication plan that lists meeting frequency, status update frequency, communication channels, and escalation processes.

Step #4: Contain

Containment begins once a real threat is confirmed and the team is assembled. The main objective of this phase is to prevent the threat from spreading and causing further damage by creating a “secure bubble” around the organization’s IT ecosystem. What does this mean? Essentially, the response team uses various tools and techniques to isolate affected systems and lock down unaffected ones. Meanwhile, the security team continues to monitor for new indicators of compromise and collect images to preserve evidence for the investigation. They will also gather triage data if needed.

Step #5: Transition

As containment efforts continue, the response team may capture data for forensic analysis, review automated log analysis, or conduct in-depth investigations into complex malicious activity. During the transition phase, the team focuses on fully removing the threat from the compromised systems and begins restoring operations. This step also ensures that status updates are reported regularly, based on the established communications plan.

Technologies and Tactics Involved in Incident Response

There are several technologies and incident response best practices that can improve the effectiveness of an organization’s ability to respond to incidents, including:

• Endpoint detection and response (EDR) is a cybersecurity solution focused on monitoring, detecting, and responding to advanced threats on endpoints — a prime initial target for attackers. EDR continuously gathers data from endpoints to provide visibility into suspicious events and facilitate rapid, human-led response.
• Threat hunting tools that complement EDR actively search for hidden threats within a network by analyzing data and behavior patterns, rather than relying on malware signatures or heuristics. For instance, Huntress detects and responds to threats that are often overlooked, providing insights and alerts to enable cybersecurity professionals to take prompt action to protect sensitive information and systems. These tools serve as an extra layer of containment and defense, safeguarding networks from advanced cyber threats.
• Email filtering and security solutions are designed to protect organizations from harmful or unwanted emails, such as spam, phishing attempts, and malware. These solutions automatically analyze incoming and outgoing emails based on a set of rules, such as content analysis, sender reputation, and attachment scanning, to identify, block, and contain potentially dangerous messages.

• Security information and event management (SIEM) systems provide real-time analytics of security alerts generated across an organization’s infrastructure and applications. By aggregating and correlating log data from all IT systems and devices, SIEM enables security teams to identify attack patterns and anomalous activity that may indicate malicious compromise.

• Robust backup and recovery capabilities are crucial for effective incident response. Backup tools generate restore points that allow data to be rolled back in the event of data loss. These point-in-time copies both aid in recovery and serve as forensic evidence for analyzing the incident.

How Redpoint Can Help Support an Effective Incident Response Strategy

Implementing an effective incident response strategy is no longer optional — it’s a necessity when operating in today’s evolving threat landscape. However, incident response is not a one-size-fits-all process. Your plan will vary based on factors like your industry and unique risk profile.

The Redpoint Cybersecurity team recognizes the importance of a tailored strategy that aligns with your unique needs. Our experts are here to help you create a comprehensive response strategy that ensures swift and precise action when threats arise. Moreover, Redpoint’s approach to incident response prioritizes securing your environment to prevent further damage. By integrating business and technical considerations, we help protect your organization from every angle.

Connect with our experts to craft a bespoke incident response strategy.