What are the most effective methods for detecting and responding to security incidents?

To enhance an organization's ability to proactively detect and respond to security incidents or threats, several key measures should be taken. These include establishing well-structured user training, implementing threat intelligence tools to monitor both known and unknown threats, and taking action before they materialize. Additionally, developing a vulnerability management plan to regularly scan systems and applications, and promptly patch and address threats, is crucial for reducing the attack surface.

This means using tools and techniques such as network scanners, intrusion detection systems, log analysis, vulnerability assessment, and threat intelligence to collect and analyze data about your network traffic, behavior, and configuration.

Threat detection is evolving at a faster pace than the industry want. There is hardly any time to master a technique before its outpaced by something else. I would like to share how AI tunes with ML to give us breather in network threat detection. ML and AI compliments each other in a very unique manner. ML outlines the rules of threat detection , such as threat's objective and behaviour. It visualizes how a threat will attack. In contrast, AI starts with a clean slate and makes guesses which are validated by a rule engine outside AI model ; this feedback loop helps AI gets better at its threat detection. Combining this approach of AI and ML, makes the progression and transition of a no knowledge model to a 360D threat detection automation.

In my experience, one of the most effective methods for detecting and responding to security incidents is having a next-generation firewall (NGFW) in place, different items need to be configured such as Intrusion and Detection policies, content filtering, a key element is logging and alerting so internal teams are involved and communicated when a security incident take place.

I agree with the other contributors on technologies. I also think security aware users are the get keepers to security incidents. Getting proper user training helps.

Monitoring logs, events, and activities in the environment on a regular basis aids in detecting suspicious or anomalous behavior.

As important as having the data of your network and assets, is the ability to processing it in events of interesting. For a better performance of a SOC (Security Operation Center), could be essencial the use of tool (like a SIEM) to centralize and processing all this raw data to optimize the work of the SOC analysts. Some of this tools today already have important IA to better process and identify this events from the data received. Important to keep in mind that this not aim to replace the SOC analyst, contrariwise to give it more time and freedom to work on more complex issues and analysis. This way the analyst can act in more events and with considerable reduction of false positives.

Simply, (people, process and technology ) should be taken care of again train people ensure organisation and technical measures are in place these are the key things to be done.

Monitoring and detection is the crucial component for any sort of incident response. It’s very common for a security incident to affect multiple systems and applications, therefore logs and events should be aggregated from multiple sources and analyzed by a SIEM or other security intelligence platform that may correlate events. More mature security programs may take this a step further and develop automated response mechanisms that do not require human intervention, such as dynamically quarantining infected endpoints from other systems on the network.

Although I think everyone would agree we need monitoring and alerting I think what often occurs not every alert is configured good so the result would be understand for persons administrating the monitoring stack and end user. I think there is still tension around here how to build alerts and monitoring in a way it would give clear information about the event that happend and what it means for company or users

Make sure all Incident response plans are tested and every member of the CERT team is aware of there roles and responsibilities

It is critical to create Incident Response Plans that are scalable. Know that, some incidents will only need 1 or 2 people responding while others will need expansive teams. Similarly, incidents, often, expand and contract throughout their life...this is known by First Responders in other communities. As an incident is first found, often, the first responder takes on all roles in the CERT. As others show up, those roles are shifted and shed. As the incident rolls up at the end, all of those roles shift and consolidate back to a single incident commander who, eventually, shuts the whole response down. Understanding that each incident is flexible in terms of the team and that you can and will fill and shift multiple roles helps you adapt.

Having a well-defined incident response plan and predefined playbooks enables a coordinated and efficient response to security incidents. It outlines the steps to be taken when an incident occurs.

One of the most important things that can make this theoretical plan a reality are the various dry-run exercises that should be conducted for the most efficiency.

Test the company /security team incident response plan ?regularly .Testing the incident response plan ensures that it is effective and up-to-date.

I cannot emphasize more the importance of actively train your staff and stakeholders thru Cyber Awareness campaigns. We can try to mitigate the risk, improve our policies, patch systems, have the best solutions in the market, etc.. but the human behavior we cannot predict. It's important for each single individual to know and feel that he/she contributes as well for the full company security. Don't ignore your company trainings and always remember to report anything fishy.

Absolutely! Make sure your human firewall is up and running sharpening the mindset of your users by regularly conducting awareness training sessions,games and simulation of scenarios . Because the machines will do their bit in detecting attacks and logs always comes in handy to help you investigate.

One of the best training approaches we have found is tabletop exercises. Someone runs the "incident" and its progression while the team works together to run responses.

Performing regular incident response exercises is probably the most important way to prepare for an incident. Responding to actual security incidents can quickly become chaotic and even the best made plans end up falling by the wayside during a real incident. The best way to prepare against this is to practice regularly and ensure everyone who would be involved in an incident understands their role in the process and the goals the team is out to achieve. Review how the team did after the exercise, make any necessary adjustments, and plan the next one. During the review, consider all the necessary outcomes such as legal considerations, any necessary notifications, public relations, communication internally, and ensuring business continuity.

One way of improving the incident response process is to regularly attend table top exercises. This allows security staff to work out the particulars of an incident response plan without the worry of having to respond to an actual incident. It also gives security staff an opportunity to provide a "gut check" on the processes outlined in the plan and garner feedback from members who may not have been involved in the initial creation of a plan.

It's essential to have a well-coordinated incident response team that includes IT, security, legal, and communication professionals. The team should be trained and prepared to execute the incident response plan when needed. Finally, regular testing and improvement of the incident response plan are critical to ensuring its effectiveness

We often call this an after action review...if you don't learn from the incident, you'll repeat the same mistakes again and again. Be sure that the attackers are doing this...they are learning and adapting their strategies to make their next attack more effective.

One thing I found valuable was to regularly update the incident response plan, as this is the most effective way to keep the IR plan functional and effective .

Incidents happen. Unfortunately, we tend to panic when we discover a leak or an intruder, and panic means we are wasting time. The ability to act within a short timeframe is more than just damage control, it could mean the difference between someone who is just on a recon mission or actual data loss. Many organizations don't prepare for the worst, but it's easy to create processes and test them. Imagine the next time a user enters a wrong password, something that happens every day and is usually inconsequential. But an event like this could be used to create, test, and tune processes. Use minor incidents and act as if they would be sev1, train your folks, and make sure you have public comms ready just in case.

"There is no silver bullet." Constant improvement and training cycles are essencial to keep one step ahead, as well as understanding the limitations and learning curve of the team and the tools/frameworks.

Often time thinking outside of box would be very helpful and knowledge of technology limitations. When security team is open to other perspectives and have real life experience it can safe a lot of wasted time

I’ve observed organizations that investing heavily in security hardware and software, but despite these efforts, they suffered significant damage from minor attacks. The common issue was neglecting security logs, misconfiguring policies, and inadequate infrastructure tuning. These vulnerabilities allowed attackers to infiltrate networks easily. While having specialized personnel internally is crucial, involving external experts for fresh insights is equally important. Regular penetration tests, policy reviews, and audits play a vital role in preventing incidents. Implementing security scenarios and adhering to standards can better prepare organizations. End-users sometimes contribute to incidents. So continuous oversight is essential

Something many companies don't actively monitor is DNS internally. It is paramount to manage and monitor DNS servers and requests, this can help spot bad actors and spurious requests very quickly.