What are your best practices for handling incidents with emerging tech?

In my approach to handling incidents involving emerging tech like cloud or IoT, the starting point is always alignment with business goals. Before even diving into the technical aspects, I ask, "What's the business impact? How does this technology fit into our larger strategy?" These questions help me define the scope and priorities for my incident response team. Knowing the business implications also informs compliance considerations and shapes the metrics we use to gauge our performance. In short, understanding the business context allows us to be agile and targeted in our response, ensuring that we're not just resolving issues, but doing so in a way that aligns with our organizational objectives.

Before tackling the technicalities of incident response, assess the business impact and priorities of your emerging technologies. Understand their goals, benefits, and risks, and how they align with your organization’s overall strategy. Evaluate their implications for compliance and regulatory requirements. This clarity helps define your incident response team’s scope, roles, and responsibilities, and establishes relevant metrics and reporting methods. By aligning your incident response framework with your technology strategy, you ensure that your response efforts are effective, compliant, and supportive of your organization’s broader objectives.

For me, embracing emerging tech is often synonymous with revising policies and procedures. It's not a one-off; it's ongoing. For instance, implementing cloud solutions may prompt a reevaluation of data retention and backup policies. It's vital to keep these frameworks agile, adaptable, and, above all, compliant with current standards and regulations. This might also involve revisiting contracts with vendors to ensure they're up-to-date with the nuances that new technologies bring. In essence, policies and procedures aren't static documents but living guidelines that evolve to accommodate the ever-changing tech landscape while keeping us aligned with compliance and business objectives. Thanks, Leah, for helping me learn this!

Revise incident classification and escalation criteria to address new risks, and update data retention, backup policies, and communication protocols accordingly. Ensure your incident documentation and reporting standards reflect these changes. Additionally, establish clear agreements with vendors, partners, and customers to address security and availability concerns. Maintain clarity, consistency, and compliance with relevant standards and regulations to ensure your policies and procedures effectively support your evolving technological landscape.

On tools, having a secure, out-of-band communication platform is key to unlocking faster incident response. Communication is heightened during a crisis and requires an isolated environment to restore trust in communication.

Provide regular training on the latest trends, threats, and best practices specific to these technologies. Invest in advanced tools and platforms—such as cloud-based or AI-driven solutions—for comprehensive data monitoring, analysis, and visualization. Incorporate specialized tools for managing encryption, smart contracts, and machine learning incidents. This approach ensures your team is prepared, knowledgeable, and well-equipped to navigate the complexities of modern technological challenges.

Planning a response plan is crucial for coping with incidents in emerging tech: • Brainstorm on what can go wrong when implementing emerging tech, focusing on data breaches, system failures, and tech-related security gaps. • Clarify individual roles to cover incident identification, escalation protocols, containment, recovery, & review. • Update the tech security solutions, and train your employees on the same. • Run simulations often. These mock drills will often identify insufficient training, ambiguity, or new risk factors. • Post-incident reviews are essential to build the internal resilience of the organization. Emerging tech is constantly evolving, and so are its associated risks. The organization should stay updated on the same.

Reading Vikas Dhawan's insights, I particularly agree with his emphasis on running simulations often. These mock drills serve as invaluable "stress tests" for our preparedness in the rapidly evolving landscape of emerging tech. From my perspective, what's equally critical is the review and update cycle that follows each simulation. It’s essential to dissect both our wins and losses to continuously fine-tune our incident response plans. Each drill or actual incident isn't just a test but a vital learning experience. It helps us not just prepare for but also adapt to the uncertainties of new technologies. This approach keeps us not just reactive but proactive, enhancing our overall readiness and resilience.

I understand the concept of "learn and share" as more than a best practice—it's essential when dealing with emerging tech. Conducting thorough post-incident reviews provides us with actionable insights that can shape future strategies. But the key is sharing this valuable information. Distributing our findings to stakeholders, peers, and the wider community creates a collaborative environment. In doing so, we cultivate continuous improvement and innovation, equipping ourselves and others to better manage the challenges of fast-evolving technologies.