12 Days of Incident Response

12 Days of Incident Response: A Holiday Season Survival Guide

The holiday season is a time for celebration, relaxation, and spending time with loved ones. Unfortunately, cybercriminals see it as an opportunity to exploit stretched IT teams, distracted employees, and organizations operating with reduced resources. Cyber incidents spike during the holiday season, making it critical for businesses to stay vigilant.

To help your organization stay secure, we’ve created the 12 Days of Incident Response—a handy guide inspired by the classic carol, but with actionable steps to ensure your business remains cyber-resilient.

The 12 Days of Incident Response
Day 1: A Prepared Incident Response Plan
Having a clear, updated incident response (IR) plan is the foundation of cyber readiness. Review and rehearse it with your team before the holidays.
Day 2: Two-Factor Authentication
Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) across all critical accounts to add an extra layer of protection against unauthorized access.
Day 3: Three Contact Channels
Ensure your IR team has multiple communication channels ready—email, phone, and a secure backup method in case of a breach.
Day 4: Four Regular Backups
Verify that backups are up-to-date, encrypted, and stored offline to ensure a quick recovery in case of ransomware attacks.
Day 5: Five Golden Rules for Staff
Don’t click on suspicious links.
Verify unexpected emails.
Use strong passwords.
Report anomalies immediately.
Avoid public Wi-Fi for work devices.
Day 6: Six Threat Scenarios
Review the most likely threat scenarios for your industry, such as ransomware, phishing, insider threats, or DDoS attacks, and plan responses accordingly.
Day 7: Seven Layers of Security
Employ a defense-in-depth strategy with layers like firewalls, antivirus, email filtering, endpoint protection, and 24/7 monitoring.
Day 8: Eight Hours to Detect
Speed is critical in detecting breaches. Ensure your monitoring tools and teams are optimized to identify incidents in less than eight hours.
Day 9: Nine Mock Scenarios
Conduct tabletop exercises to test your team’s readiness. Include holiday-specific scenarios, such as an attack targeting a reduced workforce.
Day 10: Ten Key Stakeholders
Identify and brief the key stakeholders who would need to be involved in case of a cyber incident, from IT to legal to communications teams.
Day 11: Eleven Trusted Vendors
Have a list of trusted vendors, such as forensic experts, legal advisors, and ransomware specialists, who can assist during an incident.
Day 12: 24/7 Incident Response Availability
The most critical piece: ensure you have round-the-clock support from a reliable Incident Response partner like CYPFER, ready to activate at a moment’s notice.

While we can’t control the cyber threats targeting businesses during the holidays, we can control how prepared we are to respond. By following the 12 Days of Incident Response, you can minimize downtime, protect your assets, and ensure your holiday season is secure.

Partner with CYPFER for Incident Response services and experience Cyber Certainty™. Our team operates globally, 24/7, with no outsourcing—ready to handle any incident that comes your way.

Stay safe and have a cyber-secure holiday season!