In the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity, what could be considered a bulletproof defence system yesterday might be considered Swiss cheese today. Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated by the day, and the cost of attacks is skyrocketing.
Without a well-informed incident response plan, organizations can’t respond as quickly as they need to, resulting in higher risk of financial, trust and reputation damage. For organizations tied to critical infrastructure, the need for an incident response plan that provides stability and durability is critical.
In this blog, we’ll dive into six trends that you should implement in your organization’s incident response plan to stay ahead of the curve and fortify your organization against threats.
1. Integrating artificial intelligence
While the concept of AI dates to the 1950’s, its applicability has matured since then. Today, the ability to automate routine cybersecurity tasks and analyze large volumes of data to derive key insights is not a “nice to have” but a “must have”. AI can help augment an organization’s incident response plan by:
- Analyzing large datasets
- Eliminates the need to manually browse logs and alerts
- Automating the incident triage process
- Eliminates manual categorization of threats and instead uses automation to detect and prioritize incidents based on severity level
- Optimizing scalability
- Ensures your incident response plan is flexible and can be adjusted to meet your organization’s needs as it grows
- Continuously improving
- Improves stability and durability through AI’s ability to learn from itself
You may not need artificial intelligence for all aspects of your incident response plan, but it is worth considering which aspects of your plan can be automated.
2. Zero-trust architecture
Traditional models of security are obsolete. A robust zero-trust security framework provides a proactive approach to cybersecurity that assumes nobody inside or outside of an organization is trustworthy. Every access request must be approved so that only authorized users with permission can access, view and edit files. In 2014, hackers stole the personal information of 145 million eBay users, using the login credentials of three eBay employees. A zero-trust security framework would have drastically reduced the chances of this breach.
3. Threat intelligence sharing
By leveraging the collective knowledge shared by the cybersecurity community, this collaborative approach provides awareness and gives organizations an overview of threats and how they can best protect themselves from them. In addition, threat intelligence sharing opens the door for trust building between companies and facilitates mutual support.
4. Cloud-centric incident response
Incident response strategies are adapting to address challenges within cloud environments. They require skilled staff with cloud security engineering experience, visibility across multi-cloud ecosystems, monitoring of cloud-native applications and securing of APIs.
5. Proactive threat hunting
Verizon’s 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) highlights the importance of continuous monitoring and proactive threat hunting. Proactive threat hunting provides a clearer picture of security and helps organizations boost their security posture. Threat hunting is important because while security operations centre analysts can detect most threats, there is still potential for others to slip through the cracks. According to IBM, it takes an average of 194 days to identify a data breach, which can incur an average cost of US$4.8 million. This means that the longer it takes to detect, the more damage to the organization.
6. Focus on cyber resilience
Cyber resilience is imperative to ensure business longevity. An effective cyber resilience plan is deployed in a top-down approach and is practiced company-wide. From the executive team to the newly hired intern, everyone in the organization (including partners, vendors and customers) must keep security top-of-mind and follow best practices. A long-term approach can help mitigate financial loss from data breaches, garner trust from customers and other businesses and lastly increase competitive advantage.
Calian’s cyber program supports organizations in their cyber journey, ensuring that their sensitive data is secure, employees are trained, and incident response plans and playbooks are up to date so that when a breach occurs the team is ready to respond.
The road ahead
Staying ahead of the curve in incident response requires a continuous commitment to improvement. By integrating emerging technologies, fostering collaboration with threat intelligence sharing and emphasizing resilience, companies can respond to threats effectively and build stronger defences for the future. Organizations that proactively refine their incident response strategies will set the benchmark for operational excellence and cybersecurity leadership in an increasingly digitized world.
