Security incidents are inevitable. Whether it’s a phishing attack, a system outage, or a misconfiguration, what truly matters is how you respond to and learn from these events. Conducting a post-incident review (PIR) is crucial for strengthening your security posture and refining your response strategies.

Why Post-Incident Reviews Matter

Skipping a PIR may save time, but it leaves your business vulnerable to repeat mistakes. The purpose of a PIR is to learn from previous problems, so your team knows which steps to take for the next one. This review process also prevents the exploitation of the same vulnerabilities, safeguarding your bottom line. In 2023, the average cost of cyberattacks on U.S. firms with over 1,000 employees was more than $53,000 per incident. Learning from past events keeps those costly mistakes from happening again, strengthening your cybersecurity strategy and improving response efficiency.

Steps to Conduct a Post-Incident Review

1. Assemble the Right Team: A PIR is only as effective as the people leading it. You need the right mix of expertise in the room to gain key information and implement improvements. This means bringing together security and IT teams and key stakeholders directly involved in the incident response. Your PIR team should include incident responders, security analysts, IT administrators, operations or service managers, and compliance or risk officers. Involving this diverse group will help you gain a well-rounded perspective on the incident. It is also crucial to assign a review lead who will be responsible for facilitating the discussion and ensuring documentation of follow-up actions.
2. Document the Incident Timelines: Understanding what happened and when is critical to improving your incident response strategy. To this end, you should create a timeline to pinpoint gaps in detection, communication, and resolution. Start by collecting logs, alerts, and reports from your security tools to reconstruct the sequence of events. Key points to document include the initial point of compromise, detection time, escalation steps, and remediation actions. Tracking these details is more important than ever, given how much dwell time has improved in recent years1.
3. Analyze the Incident: Review the collected data to identify what went wrong and what went well during the response. This analysis helps uncover gaps or mistakes in the response process, allowing teams to strengthen their defenses.
4. Create Action Items: Develop a plan with specific actions to address the weaknesses identified during the review. This ensures that the lessons learned are translated into tangible improvements.
5. Share with the Team: Ensure that all team members and relevant stakeholders are informed about the findings and action items. This encourages teamwork and communication, ensuring everyone understands their role in incident response.

Conclusion

Conducting a post-incident review is essential for any organization looking to improve its security posture and response strategies. By learning from past incidents, you can better prepare for future challenges, enhance team collaboration, and boost confidence in your incident response capabilities. Investing time in a structured PIR process will ultimately safeguard your business and help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity threats.