The keys to implementing a scalable Incident Response Automation.

Posted by alvina on June 30th, 2019

Incidence response automation and orchestration to security threats is important to solving one of the most pressing challenges faced by cybersecurity teams these days. The high increase in the number of security alerts mostly as a result of exponential increase in cyber attack in the past few years is becoming unbearable for professionals and security teams, and this is the reason they require automation of their response to security threats as it helps to streamline processes, increase an organization’s security posture and help to increase efficiency to the maximum level.

Before I talk about the implementation of incident response automation and orchestration, it is important to address their definitions for a better understanding. Automation is a machine-driven action execution on IT systems and security tools as part of incident response; automation depends on security playbooks which can be coded by professional analysts using a programming language such as python or visual UI. While orchestration is the ability to automate actions that are responsive and coordinate decision making on the bases of environment states and risk assessment.

To successfully implement incident response orchestration and incident response automation is not as easy as it may appear. To implement them, security professionals and teams need to have a very good incident response plan in place because they serve as the foundation to build on.

Here are a few keys to implementing a scalable IR automation and orchestration;

• Initial Playbook Should Be Built Around Manual Actions

It is only appropriate that your response playbook is functional no matter the efficiency of external technologies. During the creation of this manual task, they must be action-oriented with a measured outcome. The focus should be on the capture and documentation of the full extent of tasks. There should be a set plan for future automation and orchestration that will assist the action and decision of human analyst during an incident. For transferability and easy verification and validation, the task instructions should be as detailed and as descriptive as possible.

• Allow Continual Process Assessment And Refinement

The IR playbook must be in a way that enables growth and maintenance because the incident response is a continual improvement process. This process includes the addition or removal of some tasks based on advance learning through real-world experience. It is often challenging to disseminate and update IR playbooks irrespective of the applied format. but with the aid of secured and centralized platforms, a much better collaborative management is allowed.

• The playbook should be designed in a scalable and alternative manner

Your playbook should be designed in a way that as technologies, resources, requirement and skills change, it is easy and fast to adapt to the changes and account for them without a need to make edits to any unrelated duplicate tasks. It is of great importance to be able to identify common tasks and processes so as to enable easy grouping into module and share across the playbooks to allow more flexibility of their maintenance and application.