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CISA checklist

Last month, CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) published its Cybersecurity Incident

& Vulnerability Response Playbooks: Operational Procedures for Planning and Conducting Cybersecurity Incident and Vulnerability

Response Activities in FCEB Information Systems . An appendix to this guide provides a checklist to use in responding to a security breach incident.



A bare description of the checklist can be boiled down to these steps:

  1. Report the incident (to CISA) within one hour

  2. Assess the operational and information impact.

  3. Collect data about the incident.

  4. Identify the technical basis of the incident - the IOC (indicators of compromise - such as a file hash or IP address) and the TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures - which describe why and how the attack took place).

  5. Use a third party for intrusion detection.

  6. Tune tools to mitigate the attack.

  7. Implement a containment strategy - system backups; close ports and servers; prevent domain name resolution for attackers.

  8. Eradication - reimage systems from backups.

  9. Reset passwords and install updates and patches.

  10. Post-Incident action - after action hotwash to evaluate the incident response.

  11. Coordinate with the CISA and receive a CISA National Cyber Incident Scoring System (NCISS) priority level.



Sean O'Shea has more than 20 years of experience in the litigation support field with major law firms in New York and San Francisco.   He is an ACEDS Certified eDiscovery Specialist and a Relativity Certified Administrator.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the owner and do not reflect the views or opinions of the owner’s employer.

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