Are you 100 percent confident that your IT organization is prepped and ready to accurately carry out an incident response plan? Falling prey to a maliciously launched cyberattack can stop a company dead in its tracks and send employees, stakeholders and customers alike into a frenzy. Having an effective, fully vetted incident response plan in place is a vital element to your organization’s overall IT plan. In fact, many security experts today consider it not a matter of if, but when, an organization will need to deal with a data breach – and at Xigent, our stance is similar. With cyber threats looming, there is a high likelihood you’ll have an incident to respond to in your future. Even large, well-funded, and sophisticated IT organizations struggle to combat attacks, which are occurring at a higher frequency and of a higher level of sophistication than in decades past.
Organizations who simply don’t have the resources to devote to incident response may be best served engaging with an incident response services partner – their very own Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT). Below we’ll make note of three major reasons to leverage incident response services.
Many of the midsized organizations we work with, due to the size of their IT staff, face inherent challenges in responding to security incidents. For many of the less robust IT departments out there, limited resources don’t allow them to work round-the-clock to respond to an incident when one occurs. Why not trust someone to be “on call?” Our dedicated CSIRTs have a deep, fluent understanding of the current threat landscape, and possess the skills to neutralize the threats that roam the front lines of today’s cyber landscape 24/7/365. There really is something to be said for having a trusted partner who you can rely on for rapid response time.
Today, many more C-suite executives have a background or a college degree in IT, or at the very least are much more in tune with IT operations within the grater framework of their organization than in decades past. However, it’s still sometimes relatively difficult to clearly communicate each IT occurrence or happening up the ladder to your management. Additionally, when the topic of conversation is surrounding an incident, it’s not always pleasant, either. One big plus to partnering with an IT managed services provider is that they’re able to facilitate a clear and concise knowledge transfer up your management chain.
Having an incident response services partner also means having dedicated resources who is familiar with your environment and can provide a unique source of education to your own staff along the way. In resolving incidents as they arise, staff from your managed services partner can work with your team on how to handle certain issues with all the subtleties and intricacies of your business carefully taken into account. Who better to learn from than an expert? Unique training exercises and breach simulations allow your team to train on neutralizing incidents without the real threat of losing data or money.
When a data breach or incident occurs, careful coordination, timing and following a predetermined set of protocols is key to minimizing the potential threat. Armed with state-of-the-art strategies, knowledge and tools, our team of experts will tailor offerings to your specific business needs, objectives and goals.
Among the expert incident response services we offer are program development, CSIRT hotline service and email/phone support, and onsite consultancy. Also offered are retainer services, which include digital forensics, penetration testing, IR plan assessment, IR readiness assessment, strategic program assessment, plan drafting, vulnerability scanning, development/training exercises and so much more. Most importantly, we do not take a “cookie-cutter” approach, instead recognizing – and embracing – that each environment is unique and different.
So, are you ready to take the next step in improving your incident response readiness and posture? Leave us a message and a subject matter expert will reply shortly! It’s a great way to initiate a pressure-free conversation with an expert – because that’s what we’re here for.