The Most Common Misconceptions about Incident Response  

In today’s fast-paced digital world, incident response (IR) is often portrayed as seamless and automated. However, the reality is very different. Organizations frequently encounter challenges that complicate the process, leading to delays, unexpected costs, and security gaps. Three common misconceptions about IR contribute to these challenges: over-reliance on manual processes, hidden costs, and the complexity of embedded data.

Understanding these issues is critical to ensuring your organization’s incident response strategy runs smoothly—without blowing through your budget or timeline. Let’s break down these misconceptions and how they impact the effectiveness of your IR efforts.

Incident Response Is More Manual Than You Think

Many companies assume that IR processes are largely automated, but even in 2024, much of the heavy lifting remains in manual review. This introduces several challenges throughout the response process.

• Lack of Proper Scoping: Many vendors who are not technology-dominant lack the robust tools necessary to accurately complete the initial inventory of data volume. Without an accurate understanding of the data real estate project scopes are severely underestimated from day one.

• Unpredictable Timelines: With unreliable scoping come operational inefficiencies. Timeline are elongated and unpredictable, especially when vendors rely on offshore teams to conduct manual review. When data volumes balloon, more reviewers need to be hired and trained—adding to the unpredictable timelines.

• Accuracy Issues: Manual processes are prone to human error. Even highly skilled teams can struggle in these high-stress, time-sensitive environments resulting in missed security threats and inconsistencies.

• Security Concerns: Manual approaches also increase security risks. Relying on human data review requires sensitive data to be passed through multiple hands and increases the chances of data being mishandled, or data elements overlooked altogether.

Manual processes compromises security, impact budget and timeline, and increase the chances of data being mishandled, making it critical to find a technology-first partner that can properly scope and streamline the IR process from the very first steps in an already contentious post-response state. Misalignment at this time leads to significant delays and budget mismanagement.

IR Processes Are Prone to Cost Overruns

IR engagements often cost the organization a lot more than initially anticipated. Even when starting with an agreed upon initial budget, the complexity of cybersecurity incidents often leads to unforeseen expenses. What makes the cost spiral out of control?

• Tight Deadlines: Meeting strict regulatory requirements and timelines often necessitate hiring additional staff on short notice. The newly onboarded staff may not be adequately trained, resulting in inefficiencies, more errors, and even missed deadlines. This not only increases the cost due to the hiring of more people but increases the likelihood of fines or need for additional reviews.

• Scope Creep: Unexpected complexity or identification of more compromised data can cause the scope of the project to increase quickly, requiring even more resources and time to complete the engagement.

• Specialized Expertise: Most incidents demand specialized knowledge and resources, especially when dealing with multilingual data or global regulations. This requires expensive external consultants, language specialists, and legal professionals to be hired, leading to ballooning costs.

A technology-driven approach can help manage these unexpected costs by improving scoping accuracy, automating key tasks, and reducing reliance on manual labor.

Uncovering Hidden Data: Adding Layers of Complexity

Organizations generate and store vast amounts of data, most of which is saved in various zip folders. In addition, cybercriminals understand that embedding malicious files deep within zip or nested folders will further complicate the IR process. Here’s how hidden data can increase the scope and the cost of the engagement.

• Layered Archives: Multiple levels of zipped folders can hide millions of additional files that need to be extracted and reviewed. And if cybercriminals use zip folders to hide malware, it requires IR teams to be much more diligent and spend more time uncovering all of the infected files.

• Massive PST Files: Email archives (PST files) often contain years’ worth of communications and attachments. Processing these files takes time and often uncovers hidden threats, significantly increasing the scope of the project.

• Unexpected Data Volume: As more hidden data is found, IR teams need to allocate more resources and update initial estimates of timelines and costs.

Tackling large volumes of archived files without technology is nearly impossible. Working with a technology-driven IR provider gives you more accurate estimates of data volume during the initial assessment, and efficient data review in later steps, helping you control scope and avoid unexpected costs.

The Ideal IR Partner

As the frequency and complexity of cyber incidents increases, having the right strategy – and the right partner – is more important than ever.

Actfore offers a reliable, technology-driven solution that helps you recover from a breach as quickly as possible. By leveraging AI and automation, Actfore reduces scope creep, accelerates review timelines, and ensures accurate results. With thousands of language capabilities and the ability to quickly extract and analyze data from complex files, you can expect a faster, more streamlined process that keeps costs under control.