Frsecure — Incident Response Plan Template

Standard Operating Procedure: Incident Response Plan (IRP) Execution

Template Registry Engineering Standards (TRES)

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1. Document Control Block

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2. Executive Summary & Purpose

This Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) operationalizes the Template Registry Incident Response Plan (adapted from industry frameworks, including FRSecure methodology). The purpose of this document is to establish a deterministic, repeatable, and legally defensible lifecycle for identifying, containing, eradicating, and recovering from information security incidents. Adherence to this SOP minimizes operational downtime, preserves forensic integrity, and ensures compliance with regulatory notification mandates.

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3. Scope & Prerequisites

3.1 Scope

This procedure applies to all infrastructure, data assets, SaaS environments, endpoint devices, and personnel within the Template Registry organizational boundary.

3.2 Prerequisites & Tooling

• Out-of-Band Communication: Access to Signal, PagerDuty, or dedicated bridge lines (unaffected by corporate directory compromise).
• Forensic Tooling: Access to EDR (CrowdStrike/Defender for Endpoint), SIEM (Datadog/Splunk), and immutable storage buckets for memory and disk image preservation.
• Access Privileges: Break-glass root/global administrator credentials secured via Hardware Security Keys (FIDO2/WebAuthn).
• Documentation: Secure, isolated incident runbook ledger (Notion/Confluence offline export or encrypted markdown repository).

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4. Roles & Responsibilities (RACI Matrix)

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5. Step-by-Step Procedure

Phase 1: Identification & Triage

• 1.1 Detect anomaly via SIEM alerts, EDR telemetry, automated threat intel feeds, or manual reports.
• 1.2 Verify the alert to eliminate false positives; assess initial vector, scope, and affected assets.
• 1.3 Open an out-of-band incident bridge and ticketing tracker (e.g., Jira Security project).
• 1.4 Page the designated Incident Commander (IC) via PagerDuty to formally declare an incident.
• 1.5 Assign initial severity level based on impact:
  • Sev 1 (Critical): Active data exfiltration, ransomware, widespread infrastructure compromise.
  • Sev 2 (Major): Isolated system compromise, non-public data exposure risk.
  • Sev 3 (Moderate): Reconnaissance activity, blocked malware, single non-critical endpoint alert.

Phase 2: Containment

• 2.1 Execute short-term containment to halt lateral movement without destroying volatile evidence.
• 2.2 Isolate compromised hosts from the network via EDR isolation command (preserve power state for RAM capture).
• 2.3 Revoke active session tokens, OAuth grants, and credentials for compromised service accounts and users.
• 2.4 Implement temporary perimeter blockades (e.g., WAF rules, IP blacklisting, security group modifications).
• 2.5 Verify containment efficacy by monitoring network telemetry and ensuring lateral paths are severed.

Phase 3: Eradication

• 3.1 Identify root cause vulnerability, persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, scheduled tasks, registry keys), and malicious artifacts.
• 3.2 Remove malware, backdoors, and unauthorized user accounts from surviving systems.
• 3.3 Patch vulnerabilities, update access control lists (ACLs), and rotate compromised cryptographic keys/secrets.
• 3.4 Validate system integrity against known-good baselines or infrastructure-as-code (IaC) templates.

Phase 4: Recovery

• 4.1 Restore systems from verified, uncompromised backups or rebuild assets from clean golden images.
• 4.2 Reconnect restored assets to the network under heightened monitoring (SIEM/EDR watchlists).
• 4.3 Conduct comprehensive functionality and integration testing to ensure operational normalcy.
• 4.4 Formally declare the incident closed from a technical standpoint and transition to post-incident review.

Phase 5: Lessons Learned (Post-Incident Review)

• 5.1 Schedule a mandatory Post-Incident Review (PIR) meeting within 5 business days of incident closure.
• 5.2 Construct a strict chronological timeline of events (from initial compromise to full recovery).
• 5.3 Identify systemic failures, detection gaps, and response bottlenecks.
• 5.4 Assign remediation tickets with strict SLAs to engineering backlogs to prevent recurrence.
• 5.5 Archive all incident artifacts, logs, and notes in secure, encrypted cold storage for compliance retention.

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6. Quality Assurance & Pro-Tips

6.1 Best Practices

• Preserve Evidence First: Never reboot a live compromised system unless containment outweighs forensic value; volatile RAM contains crucial artifacts (encryption keys, active connections).
• Single Source of Truth: Maintain a unified timeline ledger updated in real-time by the scribe; prevent parallel, uncoordinated note-taking.

6.2 Common Pitfalls

• Premature Communication: Disclosing breach details externally before legal validation and technical verification are complete.
• Incomplete Eradication: Failing to identify secondary persistence mechanisms, leading to immediate reinfection post-recovery.

6.3 Metric Thresholds

• Mean Time to Detect (MTTD): < 15 minutes for Sev 1 alerts.
• Mean Time to Contain (MTTC): < 45 minutes from incident declaration.
• PIR Execution Window: < 120 hours post-incident closure.

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7. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: What triggers the immediate escalation of an incident to Executive Leadership?
A: Any event classified as Sev 1 involving confirmed PII/PHI exfiltration, core infrastructure encryption (ransomware), extortion demands, or legal/regulatory breach notifications triggers immediate executive escalation via the IC within 30 minutes of verification.

Q2: Who possesses the authority to disconnect production databases from the internet?
A: The Incident Commander (IC), Lead Forensics Engineer, and the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) each hold independent "break-glass" authority to sever production connectivity to mitigate active data loss without prior committee approval.

Q3: How long must incident artifacts and forensic images be retained?
A: All forensic images, memory dumps, chat logs, and ticket histories must be retained for a minimum of seven (7) years to satisfy regulatory, compliance, and potential legal discovery requirements.