Amelia Rose Smith 231233678 CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY Cyber threats : Incident Response 1. What are the essential elements in creating a successful incident response strategy for a big company, and what are some frequent mistakes to watch out for throughout the planning and implementation phases? Creating clear incident reporting and escalation procedures, assigning duties and responsibilities for incident response team members, prioritizing critical assets, and regularly testing and practicing the plan are all essential components of creating an effective incident response plan for a large organization. Avoid common errors such as leaving out important stakeholders from the planning stage, depending excessively on technological fixes, and not allocating enough funds for incident response planning and implementation. a) Determine and assign priority to the essential assets that the company needs to safeguard as the first step in creating an incident response strategy. This entails doing a risk assessment to pinpoint possible weak points and assessing the effect a security event might have on crucial company activities. b) Create concise incident reporting and escalation processes: Following the identification of essential assets, the next step is to create concise incident reporting and escalation procedures. In order to do this, it is necessary to specify how incidents will be found and reported, who will be in charge of doing so, and how occurrences will be escalated to the proper level of management. c) Determine the members of the incident response team's roles and responsibilities: The tasks and responsibilities of every member of the incident response team should be specified in an efficient incident response strategy. This involves establishing the precise tasks and responsibilities of the team members who will be in charge of discovering, notifying, and responding to issues. d) After the incident response plan has been created, it is critical to carry out regular testing and training exercises to make sure the plan is effective. This entails training and educating incident response team members continuously as well as performing tabletop exercises to evaluate the success of the strategy in simulated events. When creating an incident response plan, common mistakes to avoid include leaving out important stakeholders, relying excessively on technological fixes, and not allocating enough funds to incident response planning and execution. All pertinent parties should be included in the planning process, including senior management, the legal and compliance departments, and the IT employees. Furthermore, even though technological solutions can be useful in incident response, it is not advisable to rely solely on them to safeguard crucial assets. In order to ensure efficient incident response planning and execution, businesses must provide enough resources, including staff, funding, and time. 2. What are the most crucial elements to take into account when creating an efficient incident response strategy in the case of a significant data breach? How can businesses make sure that their answer is prompt, efficient, and thorough? Organizations must prioritize swift incident identification and containment in the event of a significant data breach, followed by in-depth investigation and recovery operations. To do this, it is necessary to develop precise incident response protocols and procedures, including incident reporting, escalation, and decision-making processes. It also calls for making sure that important stakeholders are aware of and participate in the response effort. Effective incident response plans should place a high priority on continuing monitoring and incident mitigation measures in order to stop similar occurrences from happening again. a) Rapid discovery and containment of the incident: This is one of the most crucial steps in reacting to a significant data breach. This entails locating the point of entry, cutting off access to the impacted networks and systems, and stopping further harm or data loss. b) Comprehensive investigation: Following the containment of the breach, a thorough investigation must be carried out to ascertain the extent and significance of the occurrence. Among other things, this entails identifying the categories of data that have been exposed, evaluating the harm done to important systems and networks, and figuring out what caused the breach. c) Recovery and remediation: Following the conclusion of the investigation, the organization must start the recovery and remediation process. This entails putting new security measures in place to stop future attacks as well as restoring the impacted systems and networks to their pre-incident state. d) Clear communication and coordination among all stakeholders, including internal teams, external partners, and customers, are essential for effective crisis response. Regular updates on the incident's progress and the organization's reaction actions are part of this.additionally to closely cooperating with law enforcement and regulatory organizations as required. Organizations should also develop clear incident response policies and procedures, comprising incident reporting, escalation, and decision-making processes, to guarantee their response is prompt, efficient, and thorough. To make sure the emergency response plan is efficient and current, they should also carry out frequent testing and training exercises. Finally, organizations should place a high priority on ongoing monitoring and incident mitigation measures in order to stop further occurrences. 3. In the wake of a cyber security event, how can businesses strike a balance between the need for openness and public communication and the requirement to retain confidentiality and safeguard sensitive data? What are some best practices for getting the word out to stakeholders like clients, partners, and investors following a serious security breach? In the wake of a cyber security event, it can be difficult to strike a balance between the need for openness and public communication and the requirement to retain confidentiality and safeguard sensitive data.The establishment of clear communication protocols and processes, the provision of timely and accurate updates on the status of the event and the organization's response activities, and the prioritization of the security of sensitive data and personal information are all examples of best practices for communicating with stakeholders.Additionally, it's critical to offer affected people ongoing assistance and resources, including credit monitoring services and identity theft protection, and to conduct thorough post-incident reviews to pinpoint areas where the organization's incident response capabilities can be strengthened. a) Evidence gathering and preservation: Gathering and preserving event-related evidence is the first stage in every incident response inquiry.This entails keeping all pertinent network traffic information, system logs, and any other digital evidence that may be used to determine the incident's origin and extent. b) Evidence analysis and correlation: After the evidence has been gathered, the incident response team must do a thorough analysis of the information to spot trends, abnormalities, and other signs of compromise. To pinpoint probable attack routes and gauge the severity of the incident, data from several sources must be correlated. c) Finding the event's root cause: After the analysis is complete, the incident response team must locate the incident's cause. This entails determining the precise flaws or vulnerabilities that were exploited as well as any additional elements that may have contributed to the occurrence. d) Identifying and attributing of the attackers who caused the event may occasionally be a part of incident response investigations. This might entail looking at network traffic and other signs of infiltration, as well as doing forensic research on malware or other artifacts left behind by the attackers. e) Finally, incident response investigations must also pay attention to remediation and prevention. This entails establishing new security measures to stop future events as well as taking action to remedy the vulnerabilities or holes that were exploited in the incident. Organizations should also develop clear incident response protocols and processes, including roles and duties for incident response team members, escalation procedures, and communication protocols, to ensure that incident response investigations are successful. Organizations should also regularly train and test their incident response teams to make sure they are ready to respond to cyber security events when they arise.