“We have to be prepared for the inevitable [cyber attack] and proactively move towards getting our team and our systems ready so we can respond quickly and effectively. Because you are going to have an incident, so can you mitigate it fast enough so damage will be minimal?” says Nick Powers, manager of IT security for the City of Peterborough, Ontario, in an article in IT World Canada,
It’s this attitude which has led him to push for his organization to assemble a proper incident response plan, rather than waiting until after an attack had occurred, and figuring things out on the fly. Although the initial effort can be daunting, with a huge number of possibilities to consider, Powers notes in the article that there is a ton of value in the planning process and preparing playbooks for response. Says Powers, “Up until a few months ago it was extremely ad hoc for us – ‘I think this is what we would do.’ It was reactive. We’re gradually moving to the ideal, being a more proactive response of what we’re going to do.”
Powers also notes that the buy-in of higher-ups is critical. “We spoke to our management team, told them what we wanted to do, the implications, the expectations for the organization,” he told IT World Canada. “If you don’t have that you’re going to be pushing a rope uphill.”
Source:
https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/how-to-create-an-effective-incident-response-plan/463076
