Who You Gonna Call? For Incident Response
Gary Perkins, Chief Information Security Officer
Globally, no organization is immune to attack. Cybersecurity threats are a reality and every organization, anywhere in the world, is a potential target, regardless of location or size. It’s not a question of if, but when an incident will affect your organization. Do you know who you will call for assistance?
Preventing and detecting incidents is a solid starting point, but a few additional items can significantly improve your response posture when an inevitable incident occurs: an incident response team, an incident response plan, runbooks, and drills.
As always, know your assets and be aware of everything you could lose — this should drive how much effort you put into thwarting incidents. Keep in mind there’s more than financial loss in jeopardy and remember other qualitative factors as well as the quantitative impacts of a cyber attack. Brand and reputational damage can be the most difficult to recover from and even the most comprehensive insurance policy cannot cover everything that’s at risk.
Many organizations are struggling to implement basic security controls, which makes it even more important to have an incident response plan in place. With the barrage of inbound attacks in today’s digital environment, it’s often necessary to respond to an incident before organizations have finished implementing the other security items they have planned.
1. Incident Response Team
If your organization chooses to have a virtual team, do each of the individuals know they are part of this team? Are they keeping their skills and knowledge current? Do they know the role they are expected to perform?
2. Incident Response Plan
3. Runbooks
4. Drills
At CISO Global we’d be happy to work with you to ensure you are prepared when the inevitable happens; ensuring you have a team in place, a plan with runbooks, and conducting drills to help improve your security posture. We are also happy to arrange an IR Retainer with your organization so that our experienced Incident Responders are ready to assist you when you call.
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Printable Guide —
Five Steps to Incident Response Here
About the Author
Gary Perkins is the Chief Information Security Officer at CISO Global. With 20+ years of industry leadership, Gary’s experience spans both the public and private sectors. Most recently, he served as the Chief Information Security Officer for all of British Columbia. Previously, he served as Chief of Staff for the Chief Security Office at Canadian multinational publicly traded holding company and conglomerate, Telus.
As CISO, Gary drives cybersecurity strategies and risk management initiatives. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in the Management of Technology and Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, as well as a Diploma in Criminology from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Additionally, Gary has earned more than 22 industry-related certifications and awards and serves on numerous boards and councils.