What You Should Know When Building a DFIR Team
Cybercrime has become one of the fastest-growing threats. Businesses of all structures and sizes are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. A DFIR (context: Defense, Forensics, Intelligence and Response) team is crucial to mitigating the impact of cyber attacks. How can you build an effective team that matches your business profile and needs with the necessary skill sets?
Determine Your Needs as a business before you build a DFIR Team. For example, think about your industry and company size, systems, data, risks, etc. These assessed details will help you determine the right size and amount of skillset required for your DFIR team.
Determine Your Team. The DFIR team should comprise individuals with diverse skill sets. Usually, a DFIR team should consist of individuals skilled at forensic analysis, incident response, malware analysis, network security engineers, cyber threat intelligence analysts, and security data analysis. Individuals who have demonstrated these skill sets need to be attracted.
Establish Clear Roles and Responsibilities. Members of your DFIR team should have a clearly defined role and well-understood responsibilities.
Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)to ensure consistency in the DFIR team’s processes. SOPs should encompass most, if not all aspects of the DFIR process, including incident response, evidence collection, analysis, and reporting. SOPs should undergo continual reviews and updates to keep pace with the ever-changing technology and threat landscape.
Invest in the Right Technology. Security controls or tools that give optimal visibility into your infrastructure and every point in your architecture and tools can help your team detect, respond, and perform analysis and forensic investigations in (near) real-time. Examples include network intrusion detection systems (NIDS), endpoint/extended detection and response (E/X-DR) systems, and forensic imaging tools.
Train Your Team to keep them up-to-speed with the latest threats, technologies, and techniques. Consider sending team members to industry conferences, providing access to online training courses, and encouraging them to pursue relevant certifications.
Foster a Culture of Collaboration by encouraging team members to work together, share information, and provide feedback to each other.
You can lay a strong foundation for an effective DFIR team that can bolster your cyber defence and response programs — and effectively mitigate the impact of cyber attacks.
