Incident Response
Definition
Incident response (IR) is a structured, documented approach to detecting, containing, eradicating, and recovering from security incidents that threaten information assets, business operations, or compliance. An effective IR program minimizes damage, reduces recovery time and costs, and provides evidence of organizational preparedness to auditors and regulators.
Incident Response Phases
Preparation
Develop the IR plan, define roles and escalation procedures, deploy detection tools, and train the response team. Preparation is the most important phase for compliance.
Detection & Analysis
Identify potential incidents through monitoring, alerting, and reporting. Analyze events to determine scope, severity, and impact. Categorize and prioritize incidents.
Containment
Isolate affected systems to prevent the incident from spreading. Implement short-term containment (immediate isolation) and long-term containment (patching, rebuilding).
Eradication
Remove the root cause of the incident. Eliminate malware, close vulnerabilities, revoke compromised credentials, and address the attack vector.
Recovery
Restore systems to normal operations. Verify systems are functioning correctly, monitor for recurrence, and gradually restore production access.
Lessons Learned
Conduct a post-incident review to document what happened, what worked, what failed, and improvements needed. Update the IR plan based on findings.
Compliance Requirements
Every major framework requires a documented incident response plan with defined roles and procedures
HIPAA mandates specific breach notification timelines (60 days to individuals, annual to HHS for smaller breaches)
PCI-DSS Requirement 12.10 requires an incident response plan that is tested annually
SOC 2 expects incident detection, response, and communication capabilities as part of security criteria
ISO 27001 requires incident management procedures with reporting and lessons learned processes
Tabletop exercises must be conducted at least annually to demonstrate plan effectiveness