Book Image

Incident Response in the Age of Cloud

By : Dr. Erdal Ozkaya
Book Image

Incident Response in the Age of Cloud

By: Dr. Erdal Ozkaya

Overview of this book

Cybercriminals are always in search of new methods to infiltrate systems. Quickly responding to an incident will help organizations minimize losses, decrease vulnerabilities, and rebuild services and processes. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with most organizations gravitating towards remote working and cloud computing, this book uses frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK® and the SANS IR model to assess security risks. The book begins by introducing you to the cybersecurity landscape and explaining why IR matters. You will understand the evolution of IR, current challenges, key metrics, and the composition of an IR team, along with an array of methods and tools used in an effective IR process. You will then learn how to apply these strategies, with discussions on incident alerting, handling, investigation, recovery, and reporting. Further, you will cover governing IR on multiple platforms and sharing cyber threat intelligence and the procedures involved in IR in the cloud. Finally, the book concludes with an “Ask the Experts” chapter wherein industry experts have provided their perspective on diverse topics in the IR sphere. By the end of this book, you should become proficient at building and applying IR strategies pre-emptively and confidently.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
16
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17
Index

What an IR team does

IR teams, in general, respond to security events in organizations. While automation can take up many tasks in an organization, IR remains a process primarily reserved for humans. The reason why an IR team is necessary is that the roles that it collectively carries out are at times undefined, unpredictable, and widely scoped. In its operations, the response team does a thorough analysis of all cybersecurity incidents.

Figure 3.2: An IR team analyzes information, discusses observations and activities, and shares important reports and communications across the company

The end goal of an IR team is to minimize the impacts of a security event, ensure the quick restoration of affected processes, and prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. With this aim in mind, the team collectively carries out the following critical functions:

  • Investigation/analysis: A security event could have multiple implications and a diverse team can assess...