If you've experienced a data breach, you will probably need a forensic investigation to determine the cause of the breach. Here are some forensic faqs to help you understand the process of a forensic investigation.
Here are the typical actions a forensic investigator would take:
Forensic investigations begin with some research on the company. The PFI needs to “scope” out the merchant’s environment, finding out where critical data resides, the systems that connect to it, and how the data flows in and out of the network.
The forensics team then goes onsite and gathers data from identified devices.
The investigation team brings the data back to their headquarters and analyzes it thoroughly to confirm whether a data breach actually occurred, determine what data the attacker was able to steal, and discover which vulnerabilities were exploited in the breach.
About a week after the initial data acquisition, the investigator will issue a short preliminary report that shows whether or not they’ve discovered any indicators of compromise or other overt evidence of a data compromise. After the forensic data has been fully analyzed, the investigator will submit a complete final report that includes how the attack happened, which vulnerabilities were exploited, and what data was at risk.
Forensic investigations can be costly. However, remember that the investigation involves one or more PFI’s examining a mountain of data.
The cost will depend on the size of your organization; the larger your organization, the more data you likely have that will need to be examined.
An incident response plan is a documented, written plan with 6 distinct phases that helps IT professionals and staff recognize and deal with a cybersecurity incident like a data breach or cyber attack. Properly creating and managing an incident response plan involves regular updates and training.
A well-executed incident response plan can minimize breach impact, reduce fines, decrease negative press, and help you get back to normal operations more quickly.
Here's a helpful blog that goes over the six phases of incident response.
An incident response plan should be set up to address a suspected data breach in a series of phases with specific needs to be addressed. The incident response phases are:
SEE ALSO: How to Make and Implement a Successful Incident Response Plan
In the aftermath of a data breach, taking swift action is crucial to protect your brand and mitigate the impact on your reputation. Follow these five essential steps to effectively respond to the breach, prevent further damage, and restore normal operations as quickly as possible.
SEE ALSO: How to Effectively Manage a Data Breach
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