Cyber Incident Response Plan Template WORD

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE: CYBER INCIDENT RESPONSE PLAN (CIRP)

Template Registry Engineering & Operations

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1. DOCUMENT CONTROL BLOCK

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2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY & PURPOSE

This Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) defines the institutional-grade framework for identifying, containing, eradicating, and recovering from cyber security incidents affecting Template Registry infrastructure, services, and data stores.

The purpose of this document is to ensure a rapid, deterministic, and legally compliant response to security breaches, minimizing operational downtime, data loss, and reputational risk. Adherence to this protocol is mandatory for all engineering, operations, and security personnel.

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3. SCOPE & PREREQUISITES

3.1 Scope

This SOP applies to all physical environments, cloud environments (AWS/GCP), containerized clusters (Kubernetes), CI/CD pipelines, and corporate IT assets managed or utilized by Template Registry.

3.2 Prerequisites & Tooling

Execution of this SOP requires access to and operational proficiency with the following systems:

• SIEM / Log Aggregation: Datadog / Splunk Enterprise Security.
• EDR Platform: CrowdStrike Falcon / SentinelOne.
• Cloud Console Access: AWS IAM / GCP Cloud IAM with administrative break-glass capabilities.
• Communication Channels: PagerDuty (Primary Escalation), Signal / Mattermost (Secure Incident War Room).
• Forensic Suite: Volatility, Wireshark, AWS Systems Manager (SSM) for ephemeral host capture.

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4. ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES (RACI MATRIX)

Legend: R = Responsible, A = Accountable, C = Consulted, I = Informed.

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5. STEP-BY-STEP PROCEDURE

Phase 1: Detection & Triage

• 1.1 Acknowledge incoming automated alerts from SIEM, EDR, or manual reports via the PagerDuty high-urgency queue within 5 minutes of generation.
• 1.2 Open a dedicated, encrypted war room channel (e.g., #incident-YYYYMMDD-[codename]) and spin up a PagerDuty conference bridge.
• 1.3 Assign the Incident Commander (IC) role to establish strict command-and-control over technical remediation streams.
• 1.4 Execute initial triage to determine the vector, affected assets, and potential data classification levels impacted (Public, Internal, Confidential, Restricted).

Phase 2: Containment

• 2.1 (Short-term Containment): Isolate compromised compute instances or Kubernetes pods from the production network using EDR network quarantine features or security group updates (Deny-All ingress/egress except forensics subnet).
• 2.2 Revoke active session tokens, IAM credentials, and API keys associated with compromised accounts or services.
• 2.3 Preserve system state by taking memory dumps and encrypted disk snapshots of impacted nodes before executing destructive remediation.
• 2.4 Implement perimeter-level blocking (WAF rules, firewall blackholes) if an active external command-and-control (C2) channel or DDoS attack is identified.

Phase 3: Eradication

• 3.1 Identify and patch the root vulnerability (e.g., zero-day exploit, misconfigured S3 bucket policy, compromised secret) that permitted initial access.
• 3.2 Terminate malicious processes, remove unauthorized cron jobs, backdoors, and rootkits identified during forensic analysis.
• 3.3 Rebuild compromised infrastructure strictly from verified, cryptographically signed immutable golden images or Terraform templates.
• 3.4 Rotate all system-wide secrets, service account credentials, database passwords, and TLS certificates residing within or adjacent to the blast radius.

Phase 4: Recovery & Validation

• 4.1 Bring restored services back online systematically, prioritizing core Template Registry APIs followed by peripheral tooling.
• 4.2 Perform intensive integrity checks, vulnerability scans, and regression testing against rebuilt assets.
• 4.3 Enable enhanced, verbose logging and monitoring on recovered systems for a minimum observation window of 72 hours.
• 4.4 Formally declare the incident closed via the Incident Commander once normal operational metrics and SLAs are verified.

Phase 5: Post-Incident Activity

• 5.1 Schedule and conduct a mandatory Post-Incident Review (Blameless Post-Mortem) within 48 hours of incident closure.
• 5.2 Compile all forensic artifacts, timelines, and impact assessments into the official Template Registry Incident Report repository.
• 5.3 Create actionable Jira tickets for preventative engineering tasks derived from post-mortem findings, assigning strict SLAs (Critical: 7 days, High: 14 days).

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6. QUALITY ASSURANCE & PRO-TIPS

6.1 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) & Thresholds

• Mean Time to Detect (MTTD): $\le 15 \text{ minutes}$ for critical severity alerts.
• Mean Time to Respond (MTTR): $\le 30 \text{ minutes}$ from alert acknowledgement to containment execution.
• Containment Efficacy: $100%$ isolation of lateral movement vectors within 1 hour of scoping confirmation.

6.2 Pro-Tips & Best Practices

• Never delete or overwrite evidence: Always snapshot state before rebooting or terminating cloud instances.
• Maintain out-of-band communication: Assume internal corporate Slack/Email may be compromised during an advanced persistent threat (APT) scenario; use Signal or pre-configured corporate disaster recovery comms.
• Preserve Chain of Custody: Document every command executed, time-stamped, in the master incident log for potential legal or regulatory discovery.

6.3 Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Premature Eradication: Deleting malware before dumping RAM destroys volatile forensic artifacts required for root-cause analysis.
• Premature Public Communication: Releasing statements or notifying users before Legal and Executive Leadership sign-off exposes the firm to compliance penalties.

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7. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

Q1: What triggers the immediate escalation of an incident to Executive Leadership and Legal Counsel?
A: Any incident involving confirmed exfiltration of customer PII, unauthorized access to core production database stores, ransomware execution on critical infrastructure, or extortion threats automatically triggers an immediate P0 escalation by the Incident Commander.

Q2: How should engineers handle external media or customer inquiries during an active incident?
A: All personnel must adhere to a strict "No Comment" policy. Direct all external inquiries, press contacts, and customer questions immediately to the Template Registry Communications / PR lead. Do not speculate on social media or public forums.

Q3: Can we restore from our daily automated backups immediately during the Containment phase?
A: No. Restoring backups without first identifying and patching the underlying vulnerability will likely result in reinfection. Eradication and vulnerability patching must precede any restoration from historical backups.

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End of Standard Operating Procedure.