One of the first challenges of automation and orchestration is finding the right tools that suit your needs and goals. There are many options available in the market, but not all of them are compatible, scalable, or reliable. You need to evaluate the features, functions, and integrations of each tool, and how they fit into your existing incident handling framework and workflows. You also need to consider the costs, maintenance, and support of each tool, and how they align with your budget and resources.
Another challenge of automation and orchestration is defining the scope and triggers of each action and task. You need to decide what aspects of incident handling can be automated or orchestrated, and what criteria or conditions will activate them. You also need to balance the level of automation and human intervention, and avoid over-automation or under-automation. You need to establish clear rules, policies, and procedures for automation and orchestration, and test them regularly to ensure they work as intended and do not cause any unintended consequences or conflicts.
A third challenge of automation and orchestration is managing the complexity and changes that come with them. As you automate and orchestrate more processes and tasks, you also increase the interdependencies and interactions among them, which can make them harder to monitor, control, and troubleshoot. You also need to keep up with the changes in the threat landscape, the regulatory environment, and the organizational requirements, and update your automation and orchestration accordingly. You need to have a robust governance and oversight mechanism for automation and orchestration, and a feedback loop to measure their effectiveness and efficiency.
A fourth challenge of automation and orchestration is securing the data and access that are involved in them. As you automate and orchestrate more processes and tasks, you also expose more data and access points to potential attackers, who can exploit them to compromise your system or network. You need to ensure that your automation and orchestration tools are secure, compliant, and encrypted, and that they follow the principle of least privilege and separation of duties. You also need to audit and log all the activities and transactions that are performed by automation and orchestration, and detect and respond to any anomalies or incidents.
A fifth challenge of automation and orchestration is developing the skills and culture that are required for them. Automation and orchestration are not just technical solutions, but also organizational and cultural changes that need the buy-in and support of all stakeholders, especially the incident handlers. You need to train and educate your incident handling team on how to use, manage, and improve automation and orchestration, and how to collaborate and communicate with other teams and departments. You also need to foster a culture of innovation, experimentation, and continuous improvement, and encourage feedback and suggestions from your incident handlers.
Automation and orchestration can bring many benefits to incident handling, but they can also introduce some pitfalls that can undermine their value and performance. Relying too much on automation and orchestration, automating or orchestrating the wrong processes, failing to monitor and review automation, neglecting security and privacy, and resisting or rejecting automation are all potential issues. To avoid these pitfalls, you need to adopt a strategic, holistic, and agile approach to automation and orchestration, aligning them with your incident handling objectives, capabilities, and standards. This will help ensure that you get the most out of automation and orchestration while avoiding any potential risks.