How Data Is The Key to Effective Incident Response

Every business in today’s world is a data-driven business. Each day employees, third-parties, AI services, and non-human applications attempt to access, generate, modify, and remove data. This constant change, and need for data to be shareable and accessible by all stakeholders makes critical business data vulnerable to data incidents. Just last month we saw examples of how threat actors were using social engineering tactics to target employees with MFA turned off, as a means of gaining access to sensitive data. We continue to see data incidents take place every day.

Data is the fastest growing attack surface, growing around 25% each year, and will surge to a total of 180 Zettabyes in 2025 according to Statistca. Given this new reality, a comprehensive data incident response strategy is critical in order to mitigate the damage caused by these incidents - and even determine the materiality of a data event.

In this blog post, we will explore a new set of services that are emerging to help minimize the threat of data incidents. We call them Data Incident Response services.

‍Understanding Data Incident Response

You’ve heard of Incident Response - perhaps from CrowdStrike, or Mandiant, but “Data incident response” may be new to you. This term refers to the process of identifying, managing, and mitigating data breaches and security incidents by using critical data insights delivered by data security platforms. 

An effective response plan minimizes the impact of data incidents on an organization’s operations, reputation, and finances - by combining trained security personnel with cloud-native data security solutions. Key components of a data incident response plan include:

1. Data Incident Analysis: Identifying and understanding the scope of a data incident by performing an initial impact analysis for the customer. This requires a dedicated team of security professionals trained for this express purpose
2. Sensitive data discovery: Before you have the ability to contain the data incident, remediate, the threat and restore any affected business systems - you must first know what data was at risk. As part of an Data Incident Response engagement your Data Security Platform (DSP) vendor/partner should perform prioritized data stores scans within your environment to classify data, and ensure the rapid isolation of sensitive data the could be at risk due to the incident.
3. Prioritized mitigation: Accelerating mean time to remediation requires extreme focus, and the ability to prioritize based on the business criticality of sensitive data. The service team works with your response team on a mitigation plan designed around your data footprint. This minimizes guess work, and allows your security team to remediate with precision
4. Materiality determination support: Driven by new SEC regulations, determining the materiality of a data incident is of paramount importance. The service team provides crucial support to the security team to reduce the time, and cost, required to determine the materiality of an incident. This improves the business’ ability to comply with SEC regulations, and respond to any impacted customers, partners, or employees -  as a result of the data incident.

Best Practices for Implementing a Data Incident Response Strategy

Data incident response is not the sole responsibility of security practitioners, it is the responsibility of the business leaders. It takes alignment on a plan, clear communications around accountability, and trust.

To maximize the effectiveness of any data incident response strategy, I urge you to consider the following best practices:

1. Preparation: Do your best to prepare your organization for data incidents - as they are unavoidable. This involved proper training via table top discussions, and red team exercises to simulate the potential incident. It also involved the selection of a DSP vendor who can provide the personnel to help you respond to a data incident. Think of it as a form of insurance to protect against the worst case scenario. Preparation must not be underestimated, or underappreciated, and should include, and have buy in, from key business stakeholders
2. Follow the plan: If, and when, a data incident takes place, work with your DSP vendor to help you roll out, and follow a detailed data incident response plan that outlines roles, responsibilities, and procedures for handling data incidents. 
3. Regularly Update and Enhance: Adaptiveness is the key to success. Continuously update your incident response plan to address new threats and vulnerabilities. Conduct regular drills and simulations to test your response capabilities. This is a skill that must be constantly honed, and is not a static plan.
4. Foster a Security Culture: Yes, I know, this is easier said than done. But promoting a culture of security awareness within your organization can make a massive difference. Ensure that employees understand that in order for them to have access to data, they must first know the importance of data security and their role in incident response. Create a culture of data sharing, versus blocking access to data.
5. Leverage Automation: Where possible, but sure to prioritize the use of automation capabilities will allow your team to streamline response actions and reduce the time it takes to contain and mitigate incidents. 
6. Collaborate with Stakeholders: Establish clear communication channels with internal and external stakeholders, including IT, legal, compliance, and external partners, to ensure a coordinated response.

At Cyera we are helping customers prepare for the unexpected. To learn about our Cyera Data Incident Response service, request a free briefing here -https://www.cyera.io/solutions/incident-response