Full Definition
What is Incident Response?
Incident response (IR) is the systematic approach an organization takes to prepare for, detect, contain, and recover from a security incident. An effective IR process minimizes damage, reduces recovery time, and helps prevent future incidents.
Incident Response Phases
1. Preparation
- Develop IR plan and playbooks
- Build and train IR team
- Deploy detection tools
- Establish communication channels
2. Identification
- Detect potential incidents
- Analyze alerts and indicators
- Determine scope and severity
- Document findings
3. Containment
- Short-term: Stop immediate damage
- Long-term: Prevent spread
- Preserve evidence
- Isolate affected systems
4. Eradication
- Remove threat actors
- Eliminate malware
- Close vulnerabilities
- Verify clean state
5. Recovery
- Restore systems safely
- Monitor for re-infection
- Validate functionality
- Return to normal operations
6. Lessons Learned
- Post-incident review
- Document timeline and actions
- Identify improvements
- Update procedures
Key Roles
- Incident Commander
- Technical Lead
- Communications Lead
- Legal/Compliance
- Executive Sponsor