
Below is a field-tested, timeline-driven playbook you can paste into your runbook. It blends IR (NIST-style) with DevSecOps controls so engineering, security, and ops move as one team.
0) Before anything goes wrong (prep you do today)
- RACI & war-room: Name an Incident Commander (IC), Forensics Lead, Comms Lead, SRE Lead, AppSec Lead, Legal/Compliance POC. Create an always-on chat channel
/warroomand bridge to a voice bridge. - One-click kits: Memory/triage scripts, endpoint isolation, log export, and CERT-In/NCRP report templates (India: CERT-In report ≤6h; NCRP 1930 hotline for fund-freeze in fraud/BEC).
- DevSecOps guardrails ready:
- Proven “freeze CI/CD” switch, feature-flag kill-switch, and read-only production toggle.
- Signed builds (Sigstore/Cosign), SBOM on every artifact, secret vault + rotation playbook.
- SOAR automations (isolate host, disable user, block IOC, snapshot evidence).
1) T-0 to 15 minutes — Detect, declare, stabilize
- Declare P1 (don’t debate): open
INC-####, assign IC and scribe. - Stabilize:
- Quarantine obvious bad endpoints/sessions; block known C2/IOCs at egress, WAF, DNS.
- Capture volatile evidence (proc list, netconns, memory) before any reboot.
- Freeze changes:
- Hit the CI/CD freeze; stop auto-deploys & scheduled jobs for impacted services.
- Disable risky automations (auto-rollback if compromised, but no blind redeploys).
Outputs: incident ticket, first 15-min situation report, freeze confirmation.
2) 15 to 60 minutes — Contain fast, scope smart
- Triage severity (keep as P1 if: data exfil, ransomware, auth bypass, internet-exposed, crown-jewel impact).
- Scope blast radius:
- Identity: recent authentications, token minting, OAuth refresh tokens, mailbox rules.
- Workloads: new services, suspicious containers/pods, startup tasks, crons.
- Data: egress volume spikes, object storage access, database dumps.
- Pipeline & supply chain checks:
- Verify latest releases & containers against signatures/SBOM; quarantine any unsigned or drifted artifacts.
- Lock package registries (npm/pip/private) from publishing if supply-chain compromise suspected.
Outputs: affected assets list, IOC set, preliminary kill-chain, quarantine list.
3) ≤ 6 hours — Notify, comply, communicate
- Regulatory/Legal:
- CERT-In notification (within 6 hours of discovery) with what you know; keep logs ready.
- If it’s BEC/fraud, call 1930 (NCRP) and bank nodal officer for immediate fund-freeze.
- Stakeholders: execs, legal, PR; internal holding statement; customer status page if applicable.
- Evidence management: hash artifacts, chain-of-custody, secure evidence store.
Outputs: formal notifications sent, evidence checklist, comms plan/cadence.
4) 6 to 24 hours — Eradicate & harden
- Kick out the attacker: remove persistence (services, scheduled tasks, startup items), rotate keys/tokens (CI/CD, cloud, DB, SSO), invalidate refresh tokens.
- Patch & policy: remediate exploited CVEs/misconfigs; tighten conditional access, MFA, geofencing; raise WAF/EDR aggressiveness.
- Rebuild: for high-risk systems, reimage from known-good, rebuild containers from trusted base images, re-seal secrets from vault.
Outputs: eradication list, rotated-secret register, patched systems list.
5) 24 to 72 hours — Recover safely
- Phased restoration behind feature flags and rate limits; add canary monitoring.
- Heightened detection: specific rules for the seen TTPs (e.g., new service creation, mass token issuance, TOR egress).
- Customer comms: impact summary, mitigations they may need (password resets, key rotations).
Outputs: restoration plan executed, watchlist rules live, customer notices (if needed).
6) Within 7–10 days — Learn & ship fixes
- Root cause with full kill-chain timeline (Initial Access → Execution → Persistence → C2 → Actions).
- Prevent recurrence:
- CI: add failing tests/SAST rules; enforce signed builds; block unsigned SBOMs.
- Cloud: SCP/OPA guardrails; least-privilege reviews for roles.
- Identity: step-up auth for admins, break-glass accounts rotation.
- Compliance wrap-up: final report to CERT-In/board; evidence of log retention, timestamps, and actions.
Outputs: post-mortem, backlog of security epics, updated runbooks/tabletop schedule.
Quick, copy-paste checklists
A) One-page IR checklist (DevSecOps flavored)
- IC + scribe assigned; war-room live
- P1 declared; CI/CD frozen; artifact signing verified
- Hosts/sessions isolated; volatile data captured
- IOCs blocked at EDR/WAF/DNS/Firewall
- CERT-In notified (≤6h); NCRP 1930 (if fraud)
- Secrets/keys/tokens rotated; risky accounts disabled
- Rebuild from signed, SBOM-tracked images
- Comms: execs/customers cadence set
- Post-mortem scheduled; controls updated
B) Ransomware first moves
- Isolate; stop lateral tools (SMB/RDP); snapshot encrypted hosts
- Check for data exfil; law-enforcement liaison
- Restore from immutable backups; test before broad restore
C) BEC/payment fraud first moves
- Freeze transaction (bank nodal) + 1930 report
- Audit mailbox rules/app passwords; enforce DMARC “p=reject”
Practical automations (SOAR-style pseudocode)
playbook: p1-incident
triggers:
- siem.alert.severity >= high
steps:
- enrich:ioc # VT/GreyNoise/IPinfo; tag TOR/cloud-provider
- isolate:endpoint # EDR network containment
- disable:user # IAM disable + revoke refresh tokens
- block:network # FW/WAF/DNS push IOC blocks
- snapshot:forensic # mem + disk image to evidence vault
- notify:warroom # post summary + checklist with buttons
- freeze:cicd # call pipeline API to pause deploys
Metrics that matter
- MTTD / MTTC / MTTR (detect / contain / recover)
- Time-to-freeze (CI/CD), Time-to-rotate (secrets)
- % signed artifacts in prod, SBOM coverage
- Recurrence rate of same root cause within 90 days
Templates you can drop into tickets
CERT-In subject: [URGENT] Cyber Incident Notification — <Org> — <INC-####> — <Severity>
Body (bullet points): when noticed, type, affected systems, indicators, actions taken, 24×7 contact, logs ready (SIEM/EDR/network).
Customer holding line:
“We detected and contained a security incident on <date>. There’s no evidence of ongoing risk to user transactions. We rotated credentials, increased monitoring, and will notify affected users if personal data is confirmed.”
Tooling starter pack (mix & match)
- Detect/Respond: EDR (Defender/SentinelOne/CrowdStrike), SIEM (Splunk/Elastic/Sentinel), SOAR (XSOAR/Tines).
- DevSecOps: SAST (Semgrep), SCA (Trivy/Grype), SBOM (Syft), IaC (Checkov), signing (Cosign), policy (OPA/Gatekeeper).
- Secrets/Identity: Vault, short-lived tokens, conditional access + MFA.
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