4.2. Incident Response Activities

💡 First Principle: Incident response follows a defined sequence — detect, contain, eradicate, recover — because skipping steps creates compounding problems: recovering without eradicating leads to reinfection, containing without scoping misses compromised systems, and responding without evidence collection loses the forensic record needed for legal action and prevention.

The order of operations matters as much as the individual actions. A common mistake is moving too quickly to recovery (restoring systems) before confirming eradication (removing the threat). Organizations eager to restore business operations have re-imaged systems and brought them back online still connected to an active C2 channel because they never identified the full scope of compromise.

⚠️ Common Misconception: Containment means the incident is resolved. Containment stops the bleeding — it prevents the attacker from doing more damage. Eradication removes the threat from the environment. Recovery restores normal operations. All three must occur, in that order.