This incident response plan is designed to outline procedures for managing and mitigating security incidents. The objective is to provide a structured, efficient, and compliant response to security threats while minimizing impact on customers, services, and the organization.

SCOPE

This plan applies to all incidents that may affect the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of our product, customer data, internal systems, or supporting infrastructure. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Data breaches
• Unauthorized access or account compromise
• Denial of Service (DoS) attacks
• Malware infections
• Insider threats
• System vulnerabilities and exploits

RESPONSE TEAM (IRT)

Roles & Responsibilities

The IRT is composed of personnel with specific roles to ensure effective response:

• Incident Response Manager (IRM): Coordinates the response, maintains communication, and ensures proper documentation.
• Security Operations Lead (SOC Lead): Monitors, detects, and investigates potential threats and suspicious activities.
• Engineering Lead: Addresses any technical remediation, vulnerabilities, and restores system integrity.
• Legal & Compliance Officer: Manages compliance with legal obligations, privacy laws, and reporting to regulatory bodies.
• Communication Lead: Handles internal and external communications, including customer notifications.
• Business Continuity Lead: Ensures the continuity of services and manages disaster recovery processes.

Each team member is reachable at all times during an incident.

TYPES & CLASSIFICATION

Incidents are categorized based on their potential impact on services, data, or operations:

• Low Severity: Minor impact, localized disruption, no data breach. E.g., a low-level malware infection.
• Medium Severity: Significant impact, temporary downtime, or potential data exposure. E.g., a phishing attack compromising a single account.
• High Severity: Large-scale service disruption, data breach, legal compliance risks. E.g., a ransomware attack, large data breach.
• Critical Severity: Total system compromise, significant data loss, severe reputational damage, regulatory notification. E.g., coordinated attack affecting multiple customers' data.

PHASES

Preparation

• Policies & Procedures: Establish clear security policies and ensure all team members are familiar with the incident response plan.
• Training & Drills: Conduct regular training and simulation exercises for the IRT.
• Detection Tools: Deploy monitoring tools, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and log monitoring systems to identify threats in real-time.
• Backup: Ensure regular backups of all critical systems and customer data.

Identification

• Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of system logs, network traffic, and SaaS environments to detect anomalies.
• Verification: Validate incident reports through analysis of logs, IDS alerts, and employee/customer feedback.
• Classification: Based on the severity and scope, the incident will be classified as low, medium, high, or critical.

Containment

• Short-Term Containment: Immediately isolate affected systems, user accounts, or services to prevent further damage.
  • Disconnect compromised accounts or servers.
  • Apply firewall rules or access controls.
• Long-Term Containment: Once the immediate threat is contained, implement longer-term solutions:
  • Patch vulnerabilities.
  • Change compromised credentials.
  • Implement advanced monitoring on compromised assets.

Eradication

• Root Cause Analysis (RCA): Conduct a deep investigation to understand how the incident occurred and its origin.
• Elimination of Threat: Remove malware, fix vulnerabilities, and eliminate any other persistent threats or backdoors.
• Verification: Re-scan and test the systems to ensure all traces of the incident are removed.

Recovery

• System Restoration: Restore affected systems and services to normal operations using clean backups or snapshots.
• Monitoring: Closely monitor for any signs of re-infection or persistence after restoring services.
• Customer Assurance: Notify customers of the incident, the actions taken, and any steps they need to take (e.g., password resets, security updates).

Lessons Learned

• Post-Incident Review: Hold a meeting within 72 hours of the incident to review the effectiveness of the response, identify gaps, and document lessons learned.
• Reporting: Create a comprehensive incident report that includes:
  • Timeline of the incident.
  • Impact analysis.
  • Root cause and recovery actions.
  • Recommendations for improving security and response.
• Update Policies: Refine security policies and procedures based on the findings from the incident.

NOTIFICATION & ESCALATION

Internal Notifications

• Immediate notification to the IRT when an incident is detected.
• Escalation to higher management based on the incident severity.

Customer Notifications

• Low Severity: No customer notification required unless explicitly impacted.
• Medium Severity: Notify impacted customers within 48 hours with a clear description of the issue, action taken, and recommended customer actions (e.g., password reset).
• High/Critical Severity: Notify all affected customers within 24 hours, with continuous updates as the investigation progresses.

DOCUMENTATION

All incidents are logged and documented for legal and auditing purposes. Documentation includes:

• The nature and scope of the incident.
• Steps taken for containment, eradication, and recovery.
• Evidence collected (logs, files, communications).
• Post-incident actions and remediation.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

This incident response plan should be reviewed and updated regularly based on:

• Changes in the threat landscape.
• Feedback from post-incident reviews.
• Evolving compliance requirements.