Top Skills for a Career in Incident Handling & Response
Cyber incidents are costly, and they’re costly in more than just the financial sense. The average data and ransomware breaches cost $4.24 and $4.62 billion respectively according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021. But this doesn’t include the cost of losing proprietary data and the sense of security.
Once the wall has been broken in terms of one’s sense of security, it can be difficult to reestablish that trust and feeling of safety. However, many organizations rely on Cyber Security Specialists who are adept in incident handling and response to maintain, or in the worst case scenario, rebuild security measures. We’re about to go into the top skills of successful Incident Handling and Response professionals.
As with any career, there are two skill types professionals bring to the table, and these are hard and soft skills. These may also be referred to as technical skills or personal skills. Technical skills apply to the technical practice and traditionally quantitative values that a role requires whereas personal skills apply to inherent, more qualitative values within each role. The top skills for both areas of Incident Handling and Response are listed below.
Technical Skills
Security Vulnerabilities: Being aware of the how, why, and where of cyber attacks is a huge bonus for a career in any information security field. Whether you’re working as an individual or team member, recognizing and assessing an organization’s weak points by performing vulnerability and risk assessments in addition to penetration testing go a long way. These practices help prevent attacks from happening and mitigate existing areas of contention. Blue, red, or purple cyber security practices can help you develop the security vulnerability skills you need to be successful in Incident Handling and Response positions.
Procedures & Policies Knowledge: Knowledge of procedures and policies is crucial for any Incident Handling and Response professional, SOC Analyst, or CSIRT member. Having background knowledge or experience ensures you are proficient in handling intrusion situations and know how to approach a critical scenario or can execute the proper procedure under pressure.
Intrusion Techniques: It’s good to know how to defend against cyber threats but it’s also helpful to know where those threats lie, what attack vectors your company is vulnerable to and what techniques and/or tools might be used by attackers to gain access, especially as technology and threat techniques continue to evolve. Additionally, knowing how to analyze what happened after a breach provides good actionable skills that boost your technical value. Intrusion and evasion techniques are highly sought after and are recommended skills for any aspiring security professional.
Digital Forensics: To be successful in an Incident Handling & Response career, you have to know how to investigate a breach. In other words, you need to be able to identify the author of a breach, determine what happened, and what information was compromised. You also need to know how to find where the attack originated, how it occurred, and where the organization was vulnerable. This requires excellent incident analysis skills and very good knowledge of the tools required to do so.
Strong technical skills are a must for a career in incident handling and response; however, having strong personal or soft skills enhances your success as a technical professional.
Personal Skills
Composure: Security is a high-stress environment by nature. If you’re not good under pressure, an Incident Handling and Response career may not be the best fit. The ability to remain calm and think critically about company policies and procedures is essential when looking to execute a plan during a breach. Composure goes a long way, helps the team stay on target, and is a crucial skill for security and technology careers, especially in Incident Handling and Response.
Communication: Not everybody in your organization speaks the language of Cyber Security, or technology in general. It’s important to be able to explain to non-tech team members, including executives or marketers, so your efforts have full support and processes can be better understood. Being able to explain what happened and what the best remediation plan is in your own words will make you a valuable asset, and will limit miscommunication in times of crisis.
Organization: When a breach occurs, it’s important to be prepared and even more important to be organized. Having critical data organized helps you, your team, and your organization to know where information is as well as where to look for gaps and missing, compromised, or infected data. Good organization skills help you through each step on the way to breach recovery while helping to maintain security going forward.
In a world where a cyber attack happens every 39 seconds on average, increasing your knowledge in incident handling and response is a wise decision. Incident handling and response is an important role in the digital era and will help keep your data secure, your processes effective, and your team efficient.
Looking for a place to learn more about incident handling and response? Check out the INE training material and learning paths. Whether you’re just getting started or want to enhance your existing knowledge in the field, INE has educational material to fit your needs and knowledge level!
About INE
INE is the premier provider of technical training for the IT industry. INE is revolutionizing the digital learning industry through the implementation of adaptive technologies and a proven method of hands-on training experiences. Our portfolio of training is built for all levels of technical learning, specializing in advanced networking technologies, next generation security and infrastructure programming and development. Want to talk to a training advisor about our course offerings and training plans? Give us a call at 877-224-8987 or email us at sales@ine.com.
