Why do we need incident response?

Incidents are on the increase and it has become apparent that if they are not contained properly, they can easily escalate into issues that can damage an organization. A reliable solution is to prepare adequately on how to address security incidents when they happen. IR enables organizations to take essential steps to address the ever-present threat of cyber threats.

Therefore, IR is a necessity in organizations today. Poor handling of incidents can lead to the escalation of manageable security events into catastrophes. As recent reports from security incidents have shown, IR helps organizations to mitigate attacks, minimize losses, and even prevent future security incidents.

To achieve the best outcomes from IR processes, the organization should ensure that it acts with speed immediately after a security event is detected. However, before executing the mitigative actions, the nature and extent of the security incident have to be determined. In the short term, the organization ought to focus on deploying resources to combat the active threat and return the organization to normalcy. This should be done in parallel with seeking assistance from law enforcement and third parties to assist with tracking down the cause. In the long term, IR activities can be focused on identifying the cause of the threat to find permanent fixes, improving the security tools used to ensure better detection and prevention, prosecuting the culpable parties, and addressing reputational damage.

Despite the reliance on conventional cybersecurity approaches that are heavily reliant on security tools, new threats can be best mitigated by people and processes. Hence, IR, which combines the efforts of security tools with people and processes, will often lead to more effective solutions. Organizations must, however, continually evaluate their IR plans and teams to ensure that their effectiveness improves over time. Nonetheless, the importance of IR in modern IT environments cannot be underestimated.