How to Create an Information Security Incident Response Plan

In recent years, the cyber environment has become increasingly dangerous for brands. In this scenario, companies are constantly under threat of being attacked. To mitigate the impacts caused, it is essential to have a defined information security incident response plan.

Of course, before thinking about how to develop a response to information security incidents, it's crucial to invest in preventing these incidents before they occur—by investing in cybersecurity, creating a reliable risk management structure, identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in systems, and so on...

However, having a backup plan is never a bad option, especially with the number of cyberattacks growing exorbitantly. For instance, in 2022, Brazil experienced 103.16 billion attempted cyberattacks, according to data from Fortinet.

Nothing is 100% secure, and as the saying goes, "security becomes outdated with age." With this in mind, we have prepared a step-by-step guide on how to create an incident response plan for information security.

Throughout this text, you will understand what an information security incident response is, the importance of having this plan defined in advance, and of course, how to create it. Happy reading!

What is an Information Security Incident Response? An information security incident response involves any action taken by a company to contain the damage caused by security breaches, such as data leaks and cyberattacks.

The goal of this plan is to minimize the impact of the incident, protect sensitive information, reduce infrastructural and financial damage, and also decrease the time spent on damage recovery.

This process involves collecting digital evidence, identifying the origin of the incident, assessing the impact, identifying vulnerabilities, and implementing corrective measures.

How to Create an Information Security Incident Response Plan Even with structured security systems, cyberattacks can still occur. That's why having a pre-defined information security incident response plan is so important. Here's the step-by-step guide:

1. Preparation In the event of a cyberattack, the first step in the response plan should be to prepare everyone on the team on how to handle the incident. At this stage, it's necessary to instruct employees on best practices and the primary risks to the company's integrity.

In this phase, the information security team also needs to be prepared and ready to carry out the rest of the plan.

It's important to highlight that having pre-defined security policies and communication plans are crucial for ensuring everyone has a good understanding of the situation.

2. Mapping Important Assets The second step is to map out the most important and critical information assets for the organization, such as financial data, employee and client information, reports, access controls, and protocols.

In this stage, it's important to identify what is at stake and the potential damage caused by the loss or leakage of this information.

3. Damage Containment After understanding the root of the incident in the previous step, the focus should be on containing the damage caused. This involves immediately suspending access to the affected systems so that the intruder no longer has access to the organization's assets, thereby preventing further impact and additional damage to the systems and operations.
4. Understanding the Incident The fourth phase aims to identify the root of the problem. This step involves collecting relevant information and evidence to determine what happened, how the attack occurred, which data were compromised, and how to respond accordingly.

In this phase, it's essential to evaluate the impact of the incident, understanding the extent of the damage, which systems were affected, what information was lost or leaked, which documents were accessed, and which communications were disrupted—essentially, everything in the organization that was impacted by the cyberattack.

5. Developing Corrective Measures The fifth step is to address the problem by developing a practical action plan to repair the structural damage in the system.

Based on the impact assessment and root cause identification from the previous stage, a detailed action plan should be developed to specify the corrective measures corresponding to each affected area.

6. System and Asset Recovery After implementing and validating the corrective measures, the sixth step involves inspecting the system to determine what was lost and how to recover those assets.

The recovery phase serves as a period to assess the medium and long-term consequences of the incident and to plan actions to retrieve losses and repair systems.

7. System Updates and Vulnerability Fixes Many believe that lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, but that’s not true for lightning or cyberattacks. For example, the Christ the Redeemer statue is struck by lightning six times a year.

The seventh phase involves updating systems to prevent new cyberattacks from occurring. Even with an incident response plan in place, prevention is always better than remediation.

This phase is a continuous exercise—actively identifying and correcting vulnerabilities in systems to avoid future information security issues.

Bug Bounty is an effective way to identify vulnerabilities in systems because it acts as a reward program connecting companies with thousands of information security experts to find flaws that could trigger potential cybersecurity incidents.

Want to learn more about how Bug Bounty can help your company protect against cyberattacks and avoid having to put this incident response plan into practice? Contact BugHunt!