Cyber Incident Response – More Important than Ever

We hear a lot about preparedness and crisis management in these days of COVID 19 and protests/rioting. We tend to attach these disciplines to a physical threat to the safety and security of assets, primarily self and personnel. Equally significant assets and the loss of which would have a significant impact, are the target of a silent threat from cyber-attacks.

The need for a Cyber Incident Response Plan has never been more critical. In the wake of unrest and uncertainty from rioting and an epidemic, businesses are more exposed than ever. We discussed in previous reports the need to prioritize all threats to your business. The basis of Security Management is prioritization. While the high profile threats are understandably a priority, hackers and cybercriminals recognize the opportunity to take advantage of a business’s lack of focus. While you’re looking left, they attack from the right.

Having a well-designed and over-arching response plan for cyber-attack allows a company to respond and mitigate the impact of the threat. The primary role of a Crisis Manager is to Respond, Investigate, and Remediate. A quality Response Plan has ownership by someone in management. It is a living process that can change daily based on the re-prioritization of threats.

Cyber Incident Response, a key piece to any management team. Ownership and preparedness are key.

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Professor Steve Hooper, College of Security and Intelligence, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.