1 1 00:00:00,330 --> 00:00:02,670 Post-incident activities. 2 2 00:00:02,670 --> 00:00:04,530 Our final phase of an incident response 3 3 00:00:04,530 --> 00:00:07,410 is to conduct our post-incident activities. 4 4 00:00:07,410 --> 00:00:09,360 This is going to occur once the attack 5 5 00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:11,490 or immediate threat has been neutralized 6 6 00:00:11,490 --> 00:00:14,760 and the system has been restored to secure operation. 7 7 00:00:14,760 --> 00:00:17,280 So once we've done all that, we are back in business. 8 8 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:20,400 Everything is hunky dory and we're back to normal, 9 9 00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:22,470 but there's still some things we need to do, 10 10 00:00:22,470 --> 00:00:25,470 and this is where post-incident activity comes into play. 11 11 00:00:25,470 --> 00:00:28,080 We're going to analyze the incident and responses to identify 12 12 00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:31,350 whether the procedures or systems could have been improved. 13 13 00:00:31,350 --> 00:00:33,420 Now, as part of our post-incident activities, 14 14 00:00:33,420 --> 00:00:34,980 we have three main areas 15 15 00:00:34,980 --> 00:00:37,230 that we're going to consider in this lesson. 16 16 00:00:37,230 --> 00:00:39,030 We have report writing, 17 17 00:00:39,030 --> 00:00:42,450 incident summary reports, and evidence retention. 18 18 00:00:42,450 --> 00:00:44,880 First, let's talk about report writing. 19 19 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:47,490 Report writing is an essential analyst skill, 20 20 00:00:47,490 --> 00:00:49,981 and it's used to communicate information 21 21 00:00:49,981 --> 00:00:52,680 about the incident to a wide variety of stakeholders. 22 22 00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:54,390 Now, when you're making these reports 23 23 00:00:54,390 --> 00:00:56,460 you want to make sure you're clearly marking them 24 24 00:00:56,460 --> 00:00:58,230 for the intended audience, 25 25 00:00:58,230 --> 00:01:00,720 because depending on who you're writing it for, 26 26 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:02,820 that is either going to have different classification levels 27 27 00:01:02,820 --> 00:01:06,060 or different audiences who have different needs. 28 28 00:01:06,060 --> 00:01:08,040 For example, if I work for the government, 29 29 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:09,450 and I'm talking about something that happened 30 30 00:01:09,450 --> 00:01:11,010 on a top secret system, 31 31 00:01:11,010 --> 00:01:13,560 that report needs to be marked Top Secret, 32 32 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:16,710 to make sure only cleared people can read that report. 33 33 00:01:16,710 --> 00:01:19,290 Additionally, if I'm in a business organization, 34 34 00:01:19,290 --> 00:01:21,330 I might write a report for the technical audience 35 35 00:01:21,330 --> 00:01:22,770 and one for leadership, 36 36 00:01:22,770 --> 00:01:25,080 and those are going to be very different reports. 37 37 00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:27,150 When I write one for my senior leadership, 38 38 00:01:27,150 --> 00:01:29,520 I'm going to create an Executive Summary. 39 39 00:01:29,520 --> 00:01:32,760 This is a shorter report that has different sections on it 40 40 00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:34,590 for things like our problem statement, 41 41 00:01:34,590 --> 00:01:38,190 our observations, our conclusions, and our recommendations. 42 42 00:01:38,190 --> 00:01:39,690 Inside this executive summary, 43 43 00:01:39,690 --> 00:01:42,480 it usually is just going to be a handful of pages. 44 44 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:44,640 These are going to have a lot of charts and graphs in there. 45 45 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:45,660 They're going to have a lot of bullets 46 46 00:01:45,660 --> 00:01:47,670 that bring out the key information, 47 47 00:01:47,670 --> 00:01:48,900 because they don't need 48 48 00:01:48,900 --> 00:01:51,270 all the technical details of the incident. 49 49 00:01:51,270 --> 00:01:53,550 They need to know what was the business impact, 50 50 00:01:53,550 --> 00:01:55,920 and how can we prevent this from happening again. 51 51 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:57,600 Generally, if you have an incident 52 52 00:01:57,600 --> 00:01:59,700 you have some kind of a deficiency, right? 53 53 00:01:59,700 --> 00:02:01,890 Somebody was able to break into your systems. 54 54 00:02:01,890 --> 00:02:03,690 So in your executive summary, 55 55 00:02:03,690 --> 00:02:05,190 you should tell them how they broke in 56 56 00:02:05,190 --> 00:02:08,340 and what you need to stop that from happening again. 57 57 00:02:08,340 --> 00:02:10,650 That may be a higher budget, more people, 58 58 00:02:10,650 --> 00:02:13,650 or some other type of resource that you just don't have. 59 59 00:02:13,650 --> 00:02:14,880 And so asking for those things 60 60 00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:16,440 as part of your executive summary 61 61 00:02:16,440 --> 00:02:18,420 is an important thing to do. 62 62 00:02:18,420 --> 00:02:20,820 Next we have an Incident Summary Report, 63 63 00:02:20,820 --> 00:02:23,220 and this is a report written for a specific audience 64 64 00:02:23,220 --> 00:02:26,790 with key information about the incident for their use. 65 65 00:02:26,790 --> 00:02:29,100 Now, these incident summary reports are going to contain 66 66 00:02:29,100 --> 00:02:31,560 information about how the incident occurred, 67 67 00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:33,420 how it could have been prevented in the future, 68 68 00:02:33,420 --> 00:02:35,130 the impact and damage on the systems, 69 69 00:02:35,130 --> 00:02:36,720 and any lessons learned. 70 70 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:38,250 Now, I know this sounds a lot like 71 71 00:02:38,250 --> 00:02:40,050 the executive summary I just mentioned, 72 72 00:02:40,050 --> 00:02:41,640 so what's the difference? 73 73 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:44,070 Well, the executive summary is one type 74 74 00:02:44,070 --> 00:02:47,160 of incident summary report, but there's many others. 75 75 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:49,350 For instance, if you're working with public relations 76 76 00:02:49,350 --> 00:02:51,270 you're going to have to write a report for them 77 77 00:02:51,270 --> 00:02:53,910 with the key details they need to be able to release that 78 78 00:02:53,910 --> 00:02:56,100 to the media and the public at large. 79 79 00:02:56,100 --> 00:02:58,500 That would be one incident summary report. 80 80 00:02:58,500 --> 00:03:00,030 Now, if I'm working, working with the system administrators 81 81 00:03:00,030 --> 00:03:02,250 on how they can prevent this from happening in the future, 82 82 00:03:02,250 --> 00:03:04,320 I might have a different incident summary report 83 83 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:06,480 written in a very high tech language 84 84 00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:08,430 so they know all the different configurations 85 85 00:03:08,430 --> 00:03:09,877 that were wrong, 86 86 00:03:09,877 --> 00:03:11,280 and what they can do to prevent this in the future. 87 87 00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:14,220 So again, it goes back to knowing who your audience is 88 88 00:03:14,220 --> 00:03:17,340 and getting the right report for the right people. 89 89 00:03:17,340 --> 00:03:18,870 The third thing we need to talk about here 90 90 00:03:18,870 --> 00:03:20,490 is Evidence Retention. 91 91 00:03:20,490 --> 00:03:23,100 Now, evidence retention is the preservation of evidence 92 92 00:03:23,100 --> 00:03:25,290 based upon the required time period 93 93 00:03:25,290 --> 00:03:26,730 defined by regulations 94 94 00:03:26,730 --> 00:03:29,070 if there's a legal or regulatory impact 95 95 00:03:29,070 --> 00:03:31,110 that's caused by the incident. 96 96 00:03:31,110 --> 00:03:33,870 For example, if you want to be able to go after the attacker 97 97 00:03:33,870 --> 00:03:35,370 who got into your network 98 98 00:03:35,370 --> 00:03:37,230 and you want to prosecute that person, 99 99 00:03:37,230 --> 00:03:39,270 you're going to need to retain the evidence. 100 100 00:03:39,270 --> 00:03:41,550 This is important because all of that evidence 101 101 00:03:41,550 --> 00:03:44,340 is going to have to be retained until all the legal actions 102 102 00:03:44,340 --> 00:03:47,280 including any appeals, have been completed. 103 103 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:50,100 When you're dealing with cases where prosecution is desired, 104 104 00:03:50,100 --> 00:03:51,660 you can expect that you're going to have to retain 105 105 00:03:51,660 --> 00:03:54,270 that evidence for several years. 106 106 00:03:54,270 --> 00:03:55,890 This is a big deal. 107 107 00:03:55,890 --> 00:03:57,510 Now, why is it a big deal? 108 108 00:03:57,510 --> 00:04:01,080 Well, because that retention is going to cost you money. 109 109 00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:02,730 It's going to cost you resources, 110 110 00:04:02,730 --> 00:04:04,380 and so you have to be able to weigh that 111 111 00:04:04,380 --> 00:04:06,450 as part of your evidence retention. 112 112 00:04:06,450 --> 00:04:08,400 Now, every organization has the ability 113 113 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:11,550 to set its own period in their data retention policy. 114 114 00:04:11,550 --> 00:04:13,590 And as you think about your data retention, 115 115 00:04:13,590 --> 00:04:16,050 you are free to set it any way you want, 116 116 00:04:16,050 --> 00:04:18,720 but in some cases, your organization will have 117 117 00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:21,900 additional requirements that are set forth by law. 118 118 00:04:21,900 --> 00:04:24,570 For example, if you're a publicly traded company, 119 119 00:04:24,570 --> 00:04:26,100 you might fall into the requirements 120 120 00:04:26,100 --> 00:04:28,890 of Sarbanes Oxley here in the United States. 121 121 00:04:28,890 --> 00:04:31,080 Now, in general most organizations 122 122 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:34,290 will set a minimum retention period of at least six months, 123 123 00:04:34,290 --> 00:04:36,090 but some of these other laws and regulations 124 124 00:04:36,090 --> 00:04:39,090 may require you to hold that data for several years 125 125 00:04:39,090 --> 00:04:40,980 as part of that law and regulation. 126 126 00:04:40,980 --> 00:04:43,320 So make sure you're dealing with your legal team as well 127 127 00:04:43,320 --> 00:04:46,410 when you're developing your data retention policies. 128 128 00:04:46,410 --> 00:04:48,780 Now, another factor you have to consider is cost. 129 129 00:04:48,780 --> 00:04:52,080 I said it costs a lot of money to retain this evidence. 130 130 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:53,790 Now, it would be great for us to be able to retain 131 131 00:04:53,790 --> 00:04:57,030 all the data and evidence for an unlimited duration of time, 132 132 00:04:57,030 --> 00:04:59,490 but that is simply not practical. 133 133 00:04:59,490 --> 00:05:00,900 The more stuff you retain. 134 134 00:05:00,900 --> 00:05:03,060 the more hard drive space or server space 135 135 00:05:03,060 --> 00:05:05,460 or cloud storage space you are going to need, 136 136 00:05:05,460 --> 00:05:06,630 and all of that represents 137 137 00:05:06,630 --> 00:05:08,970 additional cost to your organization. 138 138 00:05:08,970 --> 00:05:10,140 Thankfully, the price 139 139 00:05:10,140 --> 00:05:13,290 of storage continues to decrease exponentially over time. 140 140 00:05:13,290 --> 00:05:16,800 For example, my company uses an online backup solution 141 141 00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:18,600 that provides us with unlimited storage 142 142 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:20,370 for a fixed annual fee. 143 143 00:05:20,370 --> 00:05:22,170 Using an offsite storage solution like this 144 144 00:05:22,170 --> 00:05:24,660 can be a great option for you to consider. 145 145 00:05:24,660 --> 00:05:26,280 The other concern with cost occurs 146 146 00:05:26,280 --> 00:05:28,350 when some of your hardware has to be collected 147 147 00:05:28,350 --> 00:05:30,450 as evidence during a response. 148 148 00:05:30,450 --> 00:05:32,130 For example, if one of your servers 149 149 00:05:32,130 --> 00:05:35,040 is collected as evidence for a case headed to prosecution, 150 150 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:37,590 you may not get it back for two or three years. 151 151 00:05:37,590 --> 00:05:40,080 In this case, you're going to have to replace that server 152 152 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:42,300 in order to fully recover your operations, 153 153 00:05:42,300 --> 00:05:44,820 and this could cost you tens of thousands of dollars 154 154 00:05:44,820 --> 00:05:46,380 depending on the scale of your incident. 155 155 00:05:46,380 --> 00:05:48,450 And therefore, it's important for you to consider 156 156 00:05:48,450 --> 00:05:50,760 that your organization has to address this 157 157 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:53,250 in their budgeting for a potential incident response 158 158 00:05:53,250 --> 00:05:54,083 in the future.