To give an example, in May of 2021, hackers gained entry into the networks of Colonial Pipeline Co. A single compromised password took down the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S., leading to shortages across the East Coast.
This well-known example, along with many others, shows us how critical incident management truly is in cybersecurity. Any company could fall victim to a similar attack. Being able to quickly identify the attack and contain the damage can help stop the attacker from causing further harm.
How Incident Management Can Enhance Your Cybersecurity
If your organization simply responds to threats as they come up, you put yourself at risk for data loss and operational delays. Data incident management is a proactive approach that helps prevent this kind of problem from occurring in the future.
Here are several reasons why incident management should be undertaken to enhance your security measures:
- It lessens the impact of a security incident. When the proper incident management measures are in place, damage can be contained, and risk can be reduced to the organization. Incident management also helps organizations quickly identify attacks.
- It prevents the future re-occurrence of an incident or similar incident. An incident can have a negative effect on your organization's cybersecurity posture. Often, to fix things, all that is needed is a routine repair. Other times, a major repair is needed. But when minor incidents occur, an organization can fine-tune alerts so time is only spent where it matters most: on incidents that pose a threat.
- It can prevent a full-blown security breach. Setting up alerts helps organizations address problems in a timely manner. By addressing security incidents quickly, an organization is mitigating risk and containing the damage that an incident can cause.
Responding to an alert can mean many things. Whether it is a minor system repair or data infiltrating the network, incident management is a crucial cybersecurity practice. It helps organizations focus on the incidents that matter most. And when a breach does occur, the organization can respond quickly and contain the damage.
How To Implement Incident Management in Your Organization
To implement incident management within your organization, you must set up alerts, baseline and tune those alerts, and respond to threats in real-time. Once a business has all alerts set up, they typically go through a set process of qualifying them, documenting them, and acting upon them.
Set Up Alerts
When organizations have sensitive data that they want to protect, they typically set up alerts. Depending on the severity of a security breach, one alert can become an incident. Typically, though, it takes more than one alert to elevate the occurrence to an incident.
In our first blog in this series, we discussed data classification. Classifying data makes many security and compliance tasks easier, including incident management. If there is an incident, knowing where your data lives helps you gain greater control over your data. For example, you can set custom alerts based on the actions you want your people to take.
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