Organizations of all sizes face a new world of evolving threats and business-impacting scenarios. A strong incident response plan is critical for businesses to thrive, as it enables them to minimize and recover from a successful cyber attack or system failure.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers extensive guidelines for incident response best practices, which can significantly enhance an organization’s ability to manage and recover from cybersecurity incidents.  The institute’s recommendations are outlined in NIST Special Publication 800-61 Revision 2 and provide a structured approach to preparing for and responding to incidents. 

An IBM study found that the average data breach cost in 2023 was $4.45 million, a 15.3% increase compared to the 2020 report. The increasing cost of breaches requires increasingly effective responses to minimize this cost.

Following NIST’s best practices lays the foundation for you to build an effective incident response plan, implementing specific processes and technologies that make sense for your organization.

So, let’s explore how you can effectively apply these best practices to keep your organization operational.

How to Enact NIST Best Practices

NIST’s best practices help save organizations from starting from scratch when developing incident response plans. So, let’s explore how you can follow NIST’s best practices to create or refine an effective incident response plan.

Develop Written Policies and Plans

Preparation and planning are the foundation of an effective incident response. According to NIST, this should take the form of developing written policies. While your policy may not know the granular, specific details in some areas, starting with a high-level incident response policy helps inform the rest of the best practices.

An ideal policy defines the incident response team’s scope, goals, and responsibilities, aligning with the organization’s overall security strategy and business objectives. 

Additionally, creating and maintaining incident response plans is vital. These plans should cover different incidents, such as malware infections, data breaches, and denial-of-service attacks. An effective response plan will detail step-by-step identification, reporting, and response procedures. 

Build the Incident Response Team

Once the policy is in place, the next step is establishing a dedicated incident response team with clearly defined roles. 

An effective team should include members with expertise in IT, cybersecurity, legal, communications, and business continuity. This combination of cross-departmental experts is necessary to effectively handle all the moving pieces of an incident, ranging from minor to severe incidents.

Provide training on specific incident response plans and solicit feedback from the team; they likely have unique insights to bring to the table.

Additionally, regular drills are necessary to keep the team aware of the latest threats and understand their roles in any given scenario. Ongoing training and drills make sure teams can respond effectively during real incidents.

Implement Tools for Detection and Analysis

Knowing when an incident occurs as quickly as possible is crucial for mounting a rapid response. Advanced monitoring systems should be implemented to detect potential security incidents and provide real-time alerts for suspicious activities and anomalies. 

Establish clear procedures for identifying and reporting incidents to help streamline the response process. These procedures include defining what constitutes an incident, who should be notified, and how incidents should be documented.

Intrusion detection systems, security information and event management (SIEM) systems, and forensic analysis tools are essential for effective incident detection, analysis, and response. These tools should be regularly updated and maintained to ensure they are always ready for use. Tools that offer out-of-band communications and document storage also go far in improving resilience.

When an incident is detected, conducting an initial analysis to understand the incident’s nature and scope is critical. This involves examining logs, network traffic, and behavior to pinpoint the source and impact of the incident. Prioritizing incidents based on severity and potential impact ensures that the most critical threats receive immediate attention.

Containment, Eradication, and Recovery

Once an incident has been detected and analyzed, the next steps are to contain its impact, eradicate the root cause, and recover from it. Having pre-planned, scenario-based containment strategies is essential to prevent further damage. 

Every incident will have different steps, including isolating affected systems, blocking malicious traffic, or deactivating compromised accounts. Depending on the severity of the incident, containment can be short-term or long-term.

Eradicating the threat involves identifying and removing the root cause of the incident. This might include cleaning malware from infected systems, patching vulnerable software, or conducting a thorough investigation to eliminate all traces of the threat. 

Once the threat has been eradicated, the focus shifts to restoring affected systems and data from backups. It’s vital to verify the integrity of restored data and validate that systems are fully operational before resuming normal operations.

Post-Incident Activity

Once the incident is fully resolved, the final step is post-incident activities. These activities focus on learning from the incident and improving future response efforts. A detailed review of the incident and the response efforts is necessary to improve future incident responses. All members of the incident response team and relevant stakeholders should be involved to offer their perspectives and insights.

The goal of post-incident review is to identify what went well and what didn’t during the incident response. The team and managers will evaluate several aspects of the response, including the effectiveness of detection and containment measures, the speed and accuracy of the response, and the clarity of communication throughout the incident. 

The insights gained from this review should be used to update and improve response plans, training programs, and communication strategies. Continuously improving your incident response capability ensures your organization remains resilient against new and emerging threats. 

Beyond specific post-incident reviews, periodically review and update your overall incident response strategy, incorporating lessons learned from previous incidents and staying informed about the latest threats and best practices in cybersecurity.

Equip Your Teams with Out-of-Band Incident Response with ShadowHQ

Applying NIST incident response best practice recommendations involves a comprehensive approach that includes robust policies and plans, an effective team, detection and analysis, containment, eradication and recovery, and post-incident activities. 

Developing robust policies, assembling a skilled response team, investing in the right tools, and continuously improving response strategies allow businesses to manage and recover from cybersecurity incidents effectively. As a result, you’ll mitigate the impact of incidents and enhance organizational resilience, ensuring long-term security and stability.

Communicating and collaborating effectively throughout an incident is critical to mounting a rapid, effective response. Otherwise, working as a team and communicating effectively with stakeholders can be challenging.

ShadowHQ is a leading provider of out-of-band communications, so your incident response plan can always be securely communicated and collaborated on. Ready to enhance your communication protocols with our secure bunker? Schedule a demo today to learn more about how we can help.