Based on three years (2016-2018) of Incident Response (IR) Plan assessments and data breach simulations conducted by Verizon for its customers, the Verizon Incident Preparedness and Response (VIPR) Report now gives organizations strategic guidance on creating effective and efficient IR Plans.
“Companies think that having an IR Plan on file means they are prepared for a cyber-attack. But often these plans haven’t been touched, updated or practiced in years and are not cyber-incident-ready,” comments Bryan Sartin, Executive Director, Verizon Global Security Services. “Having an out-of-date plan is just as bad as having no plan at all. IR Plans need to be treated as ‘living documents’, regularly updated, and breach scenarios practiced in order for them to be truly effective.”
John Grim from Verizon Threat Research Advisory Center (VTRAC) and Investigative Response Team adds, "IR Plans can be kept current by including stakeholder feedback, lessons learned from breach simulation testing as well as intelligence insights on the latest cyber-tactics being used. This enables the plan to constantly re-create itself reflecting the ever-changing cyber-security landscape.”
Six typical phases for incident response
Verizon experts have identified the six typical phases every IR Plan should contain, within which key takeaways are provided in order to help organizations maximise these areas. An overview is as follows:
The VIPR Report also includes five "Breach Simulation Kits" consisting of real-world scenarios to provide organizations with the content to facilitate their own mock incident table-top exercises in order to practise and perfect their IR Plan with stakeholders. These scenarios include crypto-jacking insider threat, a malware outbreak, cyber-espionage, as well as a cloud-related cyber-attack.