The cybersecurity landscape continuously evolves as hackers seek new methods to infiltrate systems. Companies must rethink their incident response strategy to safeguard their organizations against cybersecurity threats.
The identification phase is one of the most critical steps in any incident response plan. Here, analysts discover observables to pinpoint the source of the problem.
Identification
Malware incident response steps depend on recognizing malware in a threat landscape. The identification stage must be completed quickly to minimize damages and costs and react quickly. IT staff can identify security incidents and determine the extent of the problem by utilizing event logs, monitoring tools, error messages, intrusion detection systems, and firewalls.
During the identification process, security personnel should be able to detect phishing emails that closely mimic internal company communications, unusual system resource consumption patterns, and changes in network configurations or DNS settings. Unauthorized network access attempts and elevated user accounts may also indicate a breach. Depending on the scale of the incident, it may be necessary to isolate hardware and shut down services. In addition, it is essential to communicate the attack to management and law enforcement.
Threat actors continuously study the threat landscape to understand better how to infiltrate organizations’ networks. They can exploit vulnerabilities and use social engineering to trick employees into exposing sensitive data or paying for ransomware.
Using threat intelligence to assess the danger of a vulnerability, kill chains, or attack trees can help organizations stay ahead of attacker-weaponized vulnerabilities and prioritize their remediation efforts. Organizations can use these assessments to educate their data users about the threat landscape. It will enable them to mitigate threats and prevent breaches proactively.
Containment
Once an incident has been detected, responding teams must contain the attack as quickly as possible. This step aims to limit the damage before the situation escalates while avoiding the destruction of evidence that could be needed for prosecution. Containment procedures should include steps for various incident severity levels, enabling responders to take appropriate action within the organization’s risk tolerance. For example, the protocol for isolating a user workstation versus a domain controller may differ significantly.
To ensure they can effectively contain an incident, cybersecurity leaders should keep up with new threats as soon as possible. An excellent way to do this is by examining cyber threat intelligence reports. These reports typically summarize events related to a specific security threat for a fixed period.
Additionally, teams need to understand the threat landscape they are operating in by analyzing data breaches and assessing other companies’ experiences with malware or hardware vulnerabilities. It helps them anticipate what attacks could be carried out against their data ecosystem and allows them to provide their team members with the information they need to be prepared. It also enables them to share this threat intelligence with their cybersecurity community peers and law enforcement to help fight cyberattacks against all organizations.
Eradication
The threat landscape is a constantly changing risk environment that organizations must navigate to protect data resources against cyber threats and vulnerabilities. The threats may come from outside, such as hackers attempting to copy and extract data, or internal, like employees who leak information through social engineering techniques.
A thorough and timely malware incident response plan will help reduce the impact of attacks on organizational systems and business operations. The steps in an effective response plan should be organized into a core set of phases: preparation, identification, containment, eradication, and recovery.
Each step serves its purpose and should be incorporated into the incident response process. For example, a coordinated shutdown of affected systems and re-imaging and resetting devices are critical to ensure that all attack traces have been completely removed. Using tools that clean and scan system registries will ensure that any hidden malware not entirely eradicated during the containment phase cannot resurface later.
Building a CSIRT team that includes individuals with all relevant skills, not just security, will also be critical in ensuring that the eradication phase of an incident is as comprehensive as possible. Finally, educating your data users about the threats in the threat landscape and how to prevent them will be essential for protecting your organization’s sensitive information in the long term.
Recovery
After a cyber-attack or data breach, it’s crucial to focus on preventing future incidents. It involves creating a threat landscape assessment to identify potential risks and vulnerabilities. A threat landscape assessment helps to prioritize security efforts, including patching vulnerable systems and implementing access controls.
Many industries must comply with cybersecurity standards like PCI DSS and GDPR. A practical threat landscape assessment will help ensure an organization meets these regulations and avoid penalties or fines for non-compliance.
Hackers are constantly looking for new ways to access and compromise networks. That is why it’s so important to continuously learn about new threats and vulnerabilities and update the cybersecurity systems. A cyber threat landscape assessment can also provide valuable insight into the security methods of an attacker, allowing organizations to improve their defenses against these attacks and data breaches.
Adversaries are also evolving their ransomware business models, shifting away from brute force and password attacks to targeted campaigns that can coerce targets into paying up. Additionally, they’re using more sophisticated tactics, like Business Email Compromise (BEC) and IoT botnets, to steal information for further criminal activities such as money laundering or stock fraud.