Questions tagged [incident-response]

The art of responding to incidents in an organized and thoughtful manner.

Incident response, assumed to be information security incidents in this context, is an aspect of the Incident Management discipline. The development of an incident response procedure can take many forms, but always implies a pre-existing formal plan with the following goals:

  • Limit damages whether they be monetary, reputation, or otherwise
  • Reduce recovery time
  • Prevent reoccurrences

The final product of an execution of the response procedure should always result in a formal report detailing the event.

See the CIRT (Computer Incident Response Team) Handbook for more information.

206 questions
163
votes
2 answers

I found unknown PHP code on my server. How do I de-obfuscate the code?

We've been getting a lot of noise regarding hacked PHP files here, and it's taking a lot of time to answer these questions. In many cases, they are off-topic. We've had a discussion about this on Information Security Meta, and many people want these…
Mark Buffalo
  • 22,498
  • 8
  • 74
  • 91
151
votes
9 answers

How do organizations check *what* has been hacked?

In the UK, the company TalkTalk was recently hacked. It was later discovered, after 'investigation' that the hack was not as serious as it could have been (and less than expected). I'm wondering: How do organizations (not necessarily TalkTalk --…
ᔕᖺᘎᕊ
  • 1,283
  • 2
  • 9
  • 8
64
votes
5 answers

Can Beehive detect a Snowden-like actor?

In a seminar, one of the Authors of Beehive: Large-Scale Log Analysis for Detecting Suspicious Activity in Enterprise Networks said that this system can prevent actions like Snowden did. From their articles' conclusions; Beehive improves on…
kelalaka
  • 5,409
  • 4
  • 24
  • 47
59
votes
1 answer

What's the Impact of the CloudFlare Reverse Proxy Bug? ("#CloudBleed")

In Project Zero #1139, it was disclosed that CloudFlare had a bug which disclosed uninitialized memory, leaking private data sent through them via SSL. What's the real impact?
57
votes
8 answers

Brutalized VPS recovery data now available. Considerations?

Backstory My sites and VPS were stolen from me. The hosting company and I were locked out and unable to access it. They weren't able to create a temp password for access because the attacker blocked it. The last time I was logged into WHM, root…
47
votes
3 answers

Should we keep logs forever to investigate past data breaches?

Listening to the Secure code lessons from Have I Been Pwned made me really think about logging. It appears that in the real world a lot of data breaches are discovered long after they happened which makes the investigation and recovery much more…
alecxe
  • 1,515
  • 5
  • 19
  • 34
38
votes
5 answers

How do I respond to a published security vulnerability in my application?

In my spare time I write some PHP code the purpose of which is to block link spam and other various malicious activity. On May 11 someone who discovered an XSS vulnerability in the WordPress version of this code published it without notifying me…
Michael Hampton
  • 3,877
  • 1
  • 22
  • 32
36
votes
4 answers

Malware that can survive BIOS re-flashing

The well-respected security consultant Dragos Ruiu is reporting that he has been infected with mysterious malware that can survive re-installation of the OS and re-flashing of the OS. In other words, he has taken an infected machine, wiped it,…
D.W.
  • 98,420
  • 30
  • 267
  • 572
36
votes
4 answers

Why did my provider reset my password after someone else attempted to gain access to my account?

Recently a provider (of SIP trunking services) I subscribe to sent me a strange email. It claimed that someone in another country attempted to reset the password to my account and was unsuccessful in answering my security question. The provider's…
Michael Hampton
  • 3,877
  • 1
  • 22
  • 32
35
votes
6 answers

After getting doxxed, how can one protect personally identifiable information?

Doxing (publicly releasing private information about an individual, to make it easier to harass them) is becoming an increasingly popular tactic not just for hackivists and Anonymous, but also for petty individual revenge. What are actionable, best…
J Kimball
  • 2,137
  • 1
  • 13
  • 19
27
votes
4 answers

I detected someone probing my site for weaknesses, what can I do about it?

My site has been getting probed by a bunch of IPs from Morroco (trying to submit forms, trying out potential URLs, trying to execute scripts etc..), I have a strong suspicion it's the same person after observing the pattern of how they behave.…
25
votes
8 answers

How to respond to a SSH brute force attack on a single VPS?

I logged onto my VPS this morning to find millions of failed login attempts for the root user and other users that don't even exist. I took the below measures to try and obfuscate the attackers efforts which (have been going on for…
Aage Torleif
  • 353
  • 3
  • 8
23
votes
7 answers

Fostering an environment where honesty and disclosure are valued

UPDATE: The question is seeking real research based on behavior analysis of a significantly large sample people using well defined experiments. Posting answers based on opinions, or ad-hoc observations, does not address the question, nor does it add…
blunders
  • 5,052
  • 4
  • 28
  • 45
21
votes
8 answers

Best practices for handling computer viruses

I realize this question may be quite broad (and hopefully not a violation of the FAQs), but I'm interested in hearing how many of you handle a computer infected with Malware. In a small-to-medium business (heck, even large businesses like the New…
DKNUCKLES
  • 9,237
  • 2
  • 37
  • 47
20
votes
10 answers

Is it ever appropriate to fight back?

When an website or system is being attacked, is there ever a scenario where it should automatically take action against the attackers rather than just passively handling the attack? If so, what responses are appropriate and legal? Are there any…
VirtuosiMedia
  • 3,142
  • 3
  • 26
  • 32
1
2 3
13 14