Navigating the NIST Lifecycle: My Journey to Mastering Incident Response in Cybersecurity
Have you ever woken up with a renewed sense of purpose, ready to tackle your dreams head-on? Well, that’s exactly how I felt the day I decided to pursue a career in cybersecurity. As a cybersecurity enthusiast, my journey has been filled with ups and downs, but I’m proud to say that I’m making steady progress towards becoming a certified cybersecurity professional.
Recently, I delved deeper into the components of the incident response plan, and boy it was an eye-opener! The incident response plan is a vital tool for any organization in today’s world where cyber attacks are rampant. It’s a comprehensive strategy that outlines the processes, procedures, and standards that an organization will follow in the event of a cyber attack.
The incident response policy should reference the incident response plan that all employees will follow, depending on their role in the process. The plan will contain several procedures and standards related to incident response. It’s crucial that the organization’s vision, strategy, and mission shape the incident response process and policy. Procedures to implement the plan should define the technical processes, techniques, checklists, and other tools that teams will use when responding to an incident.
To prepare for incidents, I learned about the common components found in an incident response plan. These components include:
- Preparation — Develop a policy approved by management, identify critical data and systems, single points of failure, train staff on incident response, implement an incident response team, practice incident identification (first response), identify roles and responsibilities, and plan the coordination of communication between stakeholders.
- Detection and Analysis — Monitor all possible attack vectors, analyze incidents using known data and threat intelligence, prioritize incident documentation, and standardize incident documentation.
- Containment, Eradication, and Recovery — Gather evidence, choose an appropriate containment strategy, identify the attacker, and isolate the attack.
- Post-Incident Activity — Identify evidence that may need to be retained, document lessons learned.
All of these components are in accordance with the NIST Computer Security Incident Handling Lifecycle.
In a real-life scenario, the first part of preparation is identifying the critical information that needs protection and avoiding any single point of failure. This means creating multiple layers of protection to reduce the likelihood of a successful attack. Staff should be trained in incident response so that they know what to do, including simulations and scenarios for practice. Coordination of communication should be made among different stakeholders of the organization.
When it comes to detecting and analysis, we need to monitor the attack vectors, how the attack was made, and what technology was used. Standardizing the incident documentation is crucial as each person will have their own idea of how to record activities and procedures. Incident response is easier when an organization has a standardized incident response plan where each person knows exactly what needs to be done and in a specific sequence.
In this process, appropriate containment strategies must be implemented. We must identify the attackers and how they penetrated our defenses, and isolate the attack, making sure it does not go any further or do additional damage if damage has already been done.
Lastly, after the incident, we identify evidence that may need to be retained, and often there is an internal audit if it was a major cyber attack.
I’m excited about this journey and hope to connect with you soon with another article about my progress. Remember to stay tuned!
