Cybersecurity is a critical aspect of protecting computer systems, networks, and sensitive information

from unauthorized access, attacks, theft, and damage. To enhance cybersecurity, organizations should
develop comprehensive plans and utilize appropriate tools.
Here are some key elements of a cybersecurity plan and examples.
1. Understand security threats - Gaining knowledge awareness of potential risks and vulnerabilities
that can compromise the Confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information or system.
a) Identify assets - identify and classify critical assets, systems, and data that requires
protection. So we can prioritize their security efforts and allocate resources effectively. This
allows us to focus on protecting the most valuable and sensitive assets, reducing the overall
risk exposure. Implement CIA in organization.
b) Identify Threats - identify potential Threats that could exploit vulnerabilities and harm the
identified assets. Threats can come from various sources, including malicious activities, like
mga types of attacks, like Malware attacks, Network Attacks, Social Engineering, and
injection attacks. By identifying threats, organizations can take proactive steps to mitigate
and prevent potential risks. This include implementing appropriate security protocols and
measures to protect systems, data, and assets from known threats. And if the organization
are aware of potential threats, they can establish effective monitoring systems and incident
response plans, this will allows for early detection of security incidents and prompt
response, minimizing the impact and potential damage caused by threats.
2. Protect
1. User Awareness and Training - Educate employees about cybersecurity best
practices. This include:
a) Encryption
b) implementing AAA’s security
c) Securing your network
i. Network Hardening - Implicit deny, Analyzing logs
ii. Network Hardware Hardening - Password management, Firmware and
software updates, Access control, Auditing and monitoring.
iii. Network software Hardening - Firewalls, Proxies, and VPNs
iv. Wireless Security - WEP, WPA2 with AES/CCMP mode.
v. Update anti-malware/anti-virus software - whitelisting
vi. Disabling unnecessary network
3. Detect - Focuses on establishing mechanism and processes to detect security incidents and
potential threats in real-time or near real-time. This involves implementing:
a) Security Monitoring tools - Implement and configures security monitoring tools such as
IDS, IPS, and SIEM Systems. These tools continuously monitor network traffic, system logs,
and events for suspicious activities, and indicators of compromise.
b) Analyzing logs - Available
c) Threat Intelligence Integration: Subscribe to reputable threat intelligence sources to
receive up-to-date information about emerging threats, malware signatures, and indicators
of compromise. Leverage this intelligence to enhance detection capabilities and identify
potential threats specific to your environment.
d) User and Entity Behavior Analytics : Implement UEBA tools that use machine learning
algorithms to analyze user behavior and detect abnormal activities. UEBA solutions can
identify suspicious account behavior, such as unauthorized access attempts, privilege
escalations, or data exfiltration, based on deviations from established behavioral pattern.
Detect phase of a security plan, organizations can enhance their ability to identify security
incidents detect potential threats, and respond effectively in real-time or near real-time. This
approach allows for quicker incident response and reduces the potential impact and damage
Caused by security breaches.
4. Respond -
Incident Identification and Classification: Promptly identify and classify security incidents based on
their severity and potential impact. Establish clear criteria and processes for incident classification to
ensure a consistent and efficient response.
Incident Response Team Activation: Activate the incident response team (IRT) or designated
individuals responsible for managing security incidents. The IRT should be well-trained and ready to
initiate the response plan as soon as an incident is identified.

Incident Containment and Mitigation: Take immediate actions to contain the incident and prevent
further damage. This may involve isolating affected systems or networks, shutting down compromised
accounts, or blocking malicious activities.

Forensic Investigation: Conduct a detailed investigation to determine the root cause of the incident.
Preserve evidence, analyze logs, and gather relevant information to understand the scope and impact
of the incident. This helps in identifying the attacker's tactics, techniques, and possible vulnerabilities
in the environment.

Communication and Reporting: Establish communication channels and procedures for reporting the
incident to appropriate stakeholders, such as management, legal teams, customers, and regulatory
authorities. Maintain clear and accurate records of the incident, actions taken, and the outcome of the
response process.

Remediation and Recovery: Develop and implement a plan to remediate the vulnerabilities or
weaknesses that allowed the incident to occur. Restore affected systems to a secure state and ensure
that all necessary security patches, updates, or configurations are applied. Implement preventive
measures to minimize the likelihood of similar incidents in the future.

Incident Documentation and Lessons Learned: Document the incident response process, including the
steps taken, challenges faced, and lessons learned. Conduct a post-incident analysis to identify areas
for improvement and update incident response plans and procedures accordingly.

Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Ensure compliance with applicable legal and regulatory
requirements during the incident response process. Engage legal counsel, if necessary, to handle any
legal implications or obligations resulting from the incident.

By following a well-defined and tested incident response plan, organizations can effectively respond to
security incidents, minimize their impact, and recover operations efficiently. A structured and
coordinated response helps protect critical assets, maintain stakeholder trust, and strengthen overall
security posture.
 Incident reporting and analysis
We try our best to protect our systems and networks, but it’s pretty likely that some sort of
incident will happen.

Regardless of the nature of the incident, proper incident handling is important to understanding
what exactly happened and how it happened and how to avoid it from happening again.

 The very first step of handling an incident is to detect it in the first place.
 The next step is to analyze it and determine the effects and scope of damage.
 Was it a data leak? Or information disclosure?
 If so, what information got out? How bad is it, where systems compromised? What
systems and what level of access did they manage to get?
 Is it a malware infection? What systems were infected?
This is why having good monitoring in place is so important along with understanding your
baseline. Once you figure out what normal traffic looks like on your network and what services
you expect to see, outliers will be easier to detect.

This is important because every false lead that the incident response team has to investigate
means time and resources wasted. This has the potential to allow real intrusions to go
undetected and uninvestigated longer.

 Once the scope of the incident is determined, the next step is containment.
 You need to contain the breach to prevent further damage for system compromises and
malware infection.
 If an account was compromised, change the password immediately. If the owner is
unable to change the password right away, then lock the account.
 If it’s a malware infection, can our Antimalware software quarantine or remove the
infection. If not then the infected machine needs to removed from the network as
soon as possible to prevent lateral movement around the network, to do this, you can
adjust network based firewall rules to effectively quarantine the machine.
 You could also move the machine to a separate VLAN used for security quarantining
purposes. This would be a VLAN w/ strict restrictions and filtering applied to prevent
further infection of other systems and networks.
 It’s important during this phase that efforts are made to avoid the destruction of any
logs or forensic evidence.
 Attackers will usually try to cover their attacks by modifying logs and deleting
files, especially when they suspect they’ve been caught.
 They’ll take measures to make sure they keep their access to compromised
systems.
 This could involve installing a backdoor or some kind or remote access malware.
 Another step to watch out is creating a new user account that they can use to
authenticate w/ in the future w/ effective logging, configurations and system in place.
 This type of access should be detected during an incident investigation.
 Another part of incident analysis is determining severity, impact and recovery ability of
the incident.
 Severity includes factors like what and how many systems were compromised, and
how the breach affects business functions.
 An incident that’s compromised a bunch of machines in the network would be
more severe than one where a single web server was hacked.
 So the impact of an incident is also an important issue to consider.
 If the org only had one web server and it was compromised, it might be
considered a much higher severity breach.
 Data exfiltration - The unauthorized transfer of data from a computer
 It’s also a very important concerns when a security incident happens, hackers may try
to steal data for a number of reasons. Or account information to provide access later.
 Or attacker may just want to cause damage and destruction which might involve
corrupting data.
 Recoverability - How Complicated and time-consuming the recovery effort will be
 An incident that can be recovered w/ a simple restoration from backup by following
documented procedures would be considered easily recovered from.
 But an incident where an attacker deleted large amounts of customer information and
wrecked havoc across lots of critical infrastructure systems would be way more
difficult to recover from.
 It might not be possible to recover from it at all. In some cases, depending on backup
systems and configurations, some data may be lost forever and can’t be restored.
 Back ups won’t contain any changes or new data that were made after the last backup
run.

 Incident response
When you’ve had a data breach, you may need forensic analysis to analyze the attack. This
analysis usually involves extensive evidence gathering. This reading covers some considerations
for protecting the integrity of your forensic evidence and avoiding complications or issues
related to how you handle evidence.

Regulated data
It’s important to consider the type of data involved in an incident. Many types of data are
subject to government regulations that require you to take extra care when handling it. Here are
some examples you’re likely to encounter as an IT support specialist.
5. Recover
The "Recover" phase of a security plan is crucial for restoring operations and ensuring business
continuity following a security incident. Here are some key elements involved in the recovery phase:

System and Data Restoration: Restore affected systems, applications, and data to their pre-incident
state. This may involve deploying backups or utilizing redundant systems to minimize downtime and
resume normal operations.

Data Integrity Checks: Verify the integrity and accuracy of restored data and systems. Conduct
thorough checks to ensure that no tampering or unauthorized modifications have occurred during or
after the incident.

Patching and Updates: Apply necessary security patches, updates, and configurations to address any
vulnerabilities or weaknesses that were exploited during the incident. Keep systems and software up
to date to mitigate future risks.

Incident Review and Lessons Learned: Conduct a comprehensive review of the incident, including the
response process, actions taken, and outcomes. Identify areas for improvement and update incident
response plans, policies, and procedures based on the lessons learned.

Communication and Notification: Communicate with relevant stakeholders, such as employees,

customers, partners, and regulatory authorities, about the incident, the actions taken, and the steps
being taken for recovery. Provide timely and accurate information to maintain transparency and trust.

Post-Incident Analysis: Perform a detailed analysis of the incident to identify the root cause, the
impact, and any gaps or weaknesses in the security measures. Use this analysis to enhance security
controls, policies, and processes to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Enhancing Security Measures: Implement additional security measures based on the lessons learned
from the incident. This may include strengthening access controls, implementing multi-factor
authentication, conducting security awareness training, or enhancing network and system monitoring
capabilities.

Continuous Improvement: Establish a culture of continuous improvement in the organization's

security posture. Regularly review and update security policies, conduct security assessments, and
engage in proactive security measures to stay ahead of evolving threats.

By following a well-defined recovery process, organizations can effectively restore operations,

minimize the impact of the incident, and strengthen their overall security posture. The recovery phase
is an opportunity to learn from the incident, make necessary improvements, and mitigate the risk of
similar incidents occurring in the future.