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DevSecOps Step-by-Step Guide to Handling High-Priority Cyber Incidents — by CyberDudeBivash

 


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 /warroom and 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

  1. Declare P1 (don’t debate): open INC-####, assign IC and scribe.

  2. Stabilize:

    • Quarantine obvious bad endpoints/sessions; block known C2/IOCs at egress, WAF, DNS.

    • Capture volatile evidence (proc list, netconns, memory) before any reboot.

  3. 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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