Technological advancement has continued to envelop every corner and sector that revolves around the human being. From economic to health, banking to transportation sectors, technology has been enhanced especially due to the introduction of the internet. However, as this industry continues to widen, more threats continue creeping in calling for more enhancement in the safety and security
defenses.
One of the significant threats that are gripping fear in the hearts of many people is a cybercrime. Of course, this is a global problem that is not expected to end as long as we have the internet and the increased level of technology. To curb this threat automation and incident response have become the solace of any organization which wants to keep their systems clean and secure. But what is incident response anyway?
Understanding Incident Response
Whenever you hear of incident response, your mind should always go to the system response and management of threats and events in case of a cyber attack or other technological security issues. It usually involves multiple actions and activities that typically help in reducing the impact of the attack and security threat on the organization.
Any common and familiar automated incident response usually involves 6 phases
that enable your organization to recover fully:
● Preparation
● Identification
● Containment
● Eradication
● Recovery
● Lessons from the incident
For the above to be executed by the security team productively, in an organization or an outsourced company, should be aware of the purpose of the plan they have laid in place and details of how the project will be executed. They should also be having various incident types. Each incident should have a response plan for it so that in the case of an attack, the information can be retrieved to deal with the attack.
Incident Response by 2020
One thing that will be well-established by then will be the level of technology, and that means increased cases of cyber crimes will also be present. However, the incident response will be automated by then, and no human efforts will be needed to identify any cyber attack. This will enhance the defense system of various businesses and organizations across the globe.
Currently, most organizations are at their infantry stage and have only adopted the essential incident response especially for their IP addresses and content from being accessed by suspicious people. The beauty of an automated incident response is that any organization can use it; it knows no boundary. It can be used by analysts, managers, security teams, IT specialists, banking industries and every organization that wants to have secure systems.
Impacts of IR to the World by 2020
By 2020 automated IR will have the following impacts in most organizations:
- There will be a higher overall performance
Knowing that you have an automated IR in place, you will not have to worry whether your systems have been intruded. By then the alerting will be more effective than it is now, and most probably, it will be fixing the security threat. The security team will be more concerned with other vital issues in the organization which consequently will bring high productivity. Analysts will pay their attention to other critical things that revolve around the analysis. - There will be limited damage
As compared to now where an organization suffers a lot in case of a cyber attack, by 2020, the world will enjoy having its data safe even in case of an attack. Automated IR will ensure there are reliable and quick actions to deal with any security issues. - There will be an overall reduction in operational costs
Scaling down will be in the area of SOC where the analysts can focus on other important things rather than looking for alerts. That means the IR will identify the signals very fast and fewer people will be in the security team. This will reduce the overall SOC costs. - Faster response time
The ‘Mean Time to Detect’ (MTTD) and the ‘Mean Time to Respond’ (MTTR) to any threats will be significantly reduced when automated IR will be in place. Meaning, cyber attacks will have very minimal effects on the operation of the organization. - Defined coordination
Since the alerts for cyber attacks will be identified faster, it will mean that the decision makers who will deal with the specific threat will be set. Both the internal and external departments in an organization will be coordinated which will eventually protect the data and reputation of the organization.
Conclusion
Every organization that minds about its reputation needs to have an automated
incident response. This will help it overcome the many security attacks in our
millennial generation and consequently improve its productivity. The world is heading
into an automated IR direction, so don’t leave your business unprotected.
