Incident Response Teams (IRT) are the cyber guardians operating like a 24/7 commando Delta Force. Their mission is to spot cyber threats before they materialize, shielding organizations from potential breaches. In the event of an intrusion, they’re the rapid response force, minimizing impact with unwavering dedication and expertise, ensuring organizations’ digital fortress stands resilient against any challenge.

Driven by the NIST defined incident response lifecycle, this methodology seamlessly incorporates insights and best practices from NIST; MITRE ATT&CK, a globally-accessible knowledge base of adversary Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP); and CISA’s Incident Response Playbooks. This blog post explores how Commvault? Cloud, powered by Metallic? AI, and strategically combined with SIEM, XSOAR, and other ecosystem integrations, supports incident response, minimizing impacts, and elevating cyber resilience.

Preparation

Proactive preparation is a cornerstone of effective incident response. It involves documenting response policies, early detection instrumentation, and user education on cyber threats. This collaborative effort aligns with the NIST framework and incorporates TTP recommendations.

IRT and IT teams collaborate on incidents and use Commvault Cloud, which provides unified management, boasts a zero-trust architecture, data encryption key isolation, and advanced security measures. Such collaboration creates resilient architectures and preparation for the resiliency of critical operations, preparing for the worst. These efforts are boosted by Commvault Cloud’s cyber resiliency capabilities, AI-driven detection, integration with SIEM/XSOAR, and other ecosystem components.

Detection and Analysis

The detection and analysis phase, a multi-step process, demands accurate identification of incident types. Commvault Cloud, with its AI-driven detection and Threat Scan, excels in identifying suspicious binaries within backups, helping pinpoint potential threats. Commvault Cloud Threatwise complements this by enabling IRT to set countermeasures swiftly, creating decoys for proactive early detection and analysis, then conducting further dynamic analysis in a sandbox environment.

Containment

Effective containment is pivotal, especially in major incidents. Commvault Cloud Threatwise, integrated with Network Access Control (NAC) and leveraging syslog capabilities, aids containment by identifying attacking hosts. Simultaneously, upon suspicious file detections, Commvault Cloud automatically quarantines infected files in backup workloads, and its Cleanroom Recovery option can be leveraged by IRT for a controlled environment for monitoring and further cyber forensics, aligning with IRT’s strategy. The integration with SIEM and XSOAR further streamlines containment efforts when needed including disabling data aging or disabling users at risk when unusual file activity is detected, providing real-time insights and actions.

Eradication and Recovery

After containment, eradication aims to eliminate incident components. Commvault Cloud, with its comprehensive backup and recovery features, validation, and auto-recovery scaling capabilities, plays a crucial role. The Cleanroom Recovery option facilitates post-incident forensics, for a thorough examination of the environment.

Post-Incident Activity

Post-incident “Lessons Learned” meetings are pivotal for continuous improvement. Data analysis, including costs and incident characteristics, informs risk assessments. Effective coordination with external entities, such as incident response teams and law enforcement, is also important when needed. For example, CISA published guidelines to ensure a standardized and resilient approach to cybersecurity incidents for FCEB entities.

To enhance IRT’s proactive stance, IT insights and remediation steps from Commvault Cloud fortify defenses and provide a robust toolkit for comprehensive incident response.

Conclusion

In the dynamic landscape of cyber threats, the synergy between Incident Response Teams and cutting-edge capabilities provided by Commvault Cloud strategically integrated with SIEM, XSOAR, and other ecosystem integrations, is paramount. This collaboration not only minimizes the impact of incidents but also fortifies organizations against evolving cyber threats, for a resilient and effective response. The defenders of resilience, armed with Commvault Cloud, AI, and strategic integration, stand ready to face the challenges of the cyber frontier.