Generate summary with AI

Cloud incident response: The basics

In this two-part article, we delve into cloud incident response using insights from Ariel Parnes, COO of Mitiga, based on his appearance on the podcast Cloud Security Operations for Modern Threats. The first part offers an accessible introduction for beginners, breaking down cloud security incidents and basic response strategies. For readers who are more experienced, the second part provides an advanced look at technical approaches and tools for managing incidents in cloud environments. 

What is cloud incident response?

Imagine your cloud environment is a bustling city, full of important data, applications, and services. Cloud incident response is like having a team of first responders ready to jump into action when something goes wrong—whether it’s a break-in (data breach), a sudden power outage (system failure), or a cyberattack flooding the city with traffic (DDoS attack). The goal is to quickly spot the problem, contain the damage, fix what’s broken, and learn from the incident to prevent future attacks. Because the cloud is constantly changing, with data and services spread across different locations, handling these “emergencies” can be tricky. A strong cloud incident response plan helps you bounce back faster, keeping your cloud “city” safe, secure, and running smoothly.

Why is cloud incident response important for cloud security?

Cloud incident response is a critical component of an organization’s overall cloud security strategy because the cloud has become a primary platform for storing data, running applications, and conducting business operations. As more sensitive information and vital services move to the cloud, the risk of cyberattacks and operational disruptions increases. With more businesses relying on the cloud, understanding how to respond to incidents is becoming crucial for keeping data safe and operations running smoothly. A well-prepared cloud incident response plan helps organizations identify vulnerabilities, contain breaches, and recover data without significant business impact. In the cloud, where resources are shared with service providers, rapid response is essential to protect against potential threats and prevent cascading issues across interconnected systems.

The difference between traditional and Cloud Incident Response

In traditional incident response, everything is usually in one place—your own office or data center. Security is easier to manage because you control the physical space, and you can set up firewalls and access restrictions to protect your systems. It’s like having a secure building with locked doors and walls around your servers.

But in the cloud, things are different. Your data and services are spread across the internet, often managed by third-party companies like Amazon or Google. These cloud providers share some of the responsibility for security, but you’re still in charge of protecting your own data and access. This shared responsibility makes it trickier to spot problems and respond quickly. Plus, because cloud systems can grow and change at any time, you need automated tools that work around the clock to monitor and fix issues faster.

Understanding cloud security incidents and why they’re different

An incident is any event that can harm your system or make it stop working. For example, a data breach happens when someone sneaks into your system and steals private information. A DDoS attack is when hackers send so much fake traffic to your website that it crashes. An insider threat occurs when someone inside your company (like an employee) intentionally causes harm to your systems.

In the cloud, handling these incidents is a bit different. Unlike traditional systems where you control everything, the cloud involves a shared responsibility model. This means the cloud provider (like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud) takes care of certain security aspects, but you, the user, are still responsible for securing your data and access.

“The attacks in the cloud look differently. They behave differently. Criminals behave differently when they leverage cloud. They don’t necessarily need to follow the techniques, tactics, and procedures that they used to follow in the on-prem environments.”

Ariel Parnes

Because the cloud is so vast and flexible, with resources spread across many locations and providers, it can be harder to spot and handle incidents quickly. The cloud’s scale and complexity require constant monitoring and automated tools to detect and respond to threats effectively.

The stages of cloud incident response

When something goes wrong in the cloud, there are key steps to follow to fix the problem quickly and safely. These steps help you spot the issue, stop it from getting worse, and help you restore things to normal. Here’s a simple guide:

Detection: Spotting potential security incidents. This could be unusual activity, strange login attempts, or alerts from your cloud monitoring tools.

Identification: Checking if the event is really an incident. For example, making sure it’s not a false alarm and confirming that there’s a real problem.

“When it comes to responding to an incident, the first thing that you need to do is understand what happened or what is happening, where it is happening, when—so you can make your decisions with regards to containment, to remediation, etc. In order to understand what happens, you need to have the forensic data, the telemetry, the logs, so that they can look and extract the story.”

Ariel Parnes

Containment: Limiting the damage. This could mean isolating affected systems to stop the problem from spreading.

Eradication: Fixing the issue. Removing things like viruses, malware, or stopping unauthorized access to make sure the problem is gone.

Recovery: Getting your systems back to normal. This involves restoring data, rebooting systems, and ensuring everything is working again.

Lessons learned: After the incident, reviewing what happened and how to improve. This helps you strengthen your response for the future.

Basic best practices for cloud incident response

To stay safe in the cloud, it’s important to take some simple steps to protect your data and systems. Here are some best practices that can help you respond quickly if something goes wrong:

  1. Regularly back up data: Make copies of your important files and store them safely. This way, if something goes wrong, you can restore your data easily.
  2. Implement strong access controls and MFA: Set up rules to control who can access your systems. Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), which requires users to prove their identity in two ways (like a password plus a code sent to their phone or another device).
  3. Monitor cloud resources continuously: Keep an eye on your cloud systems to spot any unusual activity, like hackers trying to break in or systems behaving strangely.
  4. Establish an incident response plan ahead of time: Have a plan in place before an incident happens. This plan should explain what steps to take if something goes wrong, so you’re ready to act quickly.
Cloud incident response lifecycle Atera

Beyond the basics of cloud incident response

Now that we’ve covered the basics of cloud incident response, it’s time to dive deeper into the advanced and technical aspects. Get ready for a more detailed exploration.

Cloud security architecture and its role in incident response

In cloud environments, Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) has become a crucial model for securing systems and handling incidents effectively. The Zero Trust model assumes no entity, whether inside or outside the network, is inherently trusted. Every user, device, and service must be verified before access is granted. Cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud support Zero Trust with tools such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Azure Active Directory, and Google Cloud IAM. These tools enforce strict access controls, ensuring that only authenticated and authorized entities can access sensitive resources. Furthermore, they integrate with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and fine-grained access policies, enhancing security.

Micro-segmentation is another powerful tool for securing cloud infrastructures and aiding in incident response. By dividing networks into smaller, isolated segments, micro-segmentation limits the potential movement of attackers once they’ve gained access to one part of the system. This technique helps contain incidents by preventing lateral movement across the network. In cloud environments, this is achieved through Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), Security Groups, and Network Access Control Lists (NACLs). These features allow businesses to control which resources can communicate with each other, ensuring that compromised parts of the network remain isolated, reducing the scope of damage. Together, Zero Trust and micro-segmentation provide a robust framework for managing and responding to cloud-based security incidents, reducing risks, and enhancing the organization’s overall security posture.

Automated detection and response in cloud environments

Cloud-native services like AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, and Azure Logic Apps play a pivotal role in automating security incident detection and response. These services allow businesses to set up automated workflows that respond to suspicious activity in real-time. For example, when AWS CloudTrail or GuardDuty detects unusual behavior, a Lambda function can automatically isolate the compromised resource, reducing manual intervention and speeding up incident containment.

In addition to automation, continuous monitoring and threat intelligence integration are critical for cloud security. Tools like AWS GuardDuty and Microsoft Sentinel ingest external threat intelligence feeds to enhance their detection capabilities. By continuously monitoring cloud resources and leveraging threat intelligence, these platforms can identify advanced threats, such as credential stuffing, DDoS attacks, and ransomware, ensuring rapid detection and response at scale. Automated workflows triggered by these tools allow security teams to quickly isolate and mitigate attacks, improving overall cloud security posture.

Advanced data recovery and business continuity

Disaster Recovery as Code (DRaaS) leverages Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform and AWS CloudFormation to automate the process of recovering cloud environments after an incident. By defining disaster recovery procedures in code, organizations can ensure a consistent and secure recovery of their cloud infrastructure. IaC allows for the rapid rebuilding of environments, reducing downtime and ensuring that environments are restored to a known secure state quickly and efficiently. This automation ensures that disaster recovery plans are executed without the risk of human error, providing reliable, repeatable recovery processes.

Immutable Backups and Ransomware Protection are essential in the battle against modern cyber threats. AWS S3 with Object Locking and Azure Immutable Blob Storage offer solutions to prevent ransomware attacks by ensuring backups cannot be tampered with or deleted once created. These immutable storage solutions create a write-once, read-many (WORM) model that guarantees the integrity of backups, making it impossible for attackers to encrypt or delete vital data. By incorporating immutable backups into a recovery strategy, organizations can ensure that they have clean, uncorrupted data to restore in the event of an attack, mitigating the risk of losing critical information to ransomware.

Post-incident actions and compliance in the cloud

Cloud-specific regulatory compliance is a critical aspect of cloud incident response. After an incident, organizations must ensure that their cloud operations remain compliant with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2. This includes maintaining proper audit trails, which provide a record of actions taken within the cloud environment. Services like AWS Artifact and Azure Compliance Manager can help organizations manage compliance by providing detailed reports and tools to demonstrate adherence to industry-specific requirements. These platforms ensure that organizations can quickly assess their compliance status and implement any necessary changes to their security or data handling practices, preventing legal and financial repercussions.

Metrics and performance evaluation are essential in assessing the efficiency of cloud incident response. Key metrics such as incident coverage (how many potential security events were detected) and time to respond (the duration between detection and containment) offer valuable insights into the effectiveness of an organization’s security processes. Ariel Parnes highlights that “by showing coverage and by showing time to respond, you can create a formula or a way to present ROI in your investment in security operations. In a way that resonates with the concerns of the boards and management nowadays in the industry.” These metrics help track the return on investment (ROI) in security infrastructure by demonstrating how effectively and quickly incidents are handled. By regularly reviewing these metrics, organizations can continuously improve their security posture and refine their incident response strategies, ensuring faster and more comprehensive containment of future incidents.

Read more about GDPR and become an expert in regulations!

Securing the cloud: the path forward for resilient incident response

Effective cloud incident response relies on a combination of robust architectures, automation, and continuous improvement. By adopting Zero Trust principles, leveraging tools like IaC for disaster recovery, and integrating advanced monitoring systems, organizations can fortify their defenses and recover from incidents with minimal disruption. Regular evaluation of security practices and alignment with regulatory compliance ensure both resilience and credibility, enabling businesses to thrive in an increasingly cloud-dependent world.

Was this helpful?

Related Articles

Zero-day exploits: Everything you need to know in 2025

Read now

The best cybersecurity courses to become an expert in 2025

Read now

Protect your IT environment: The best browser security tools of 2025

Read now

SOC vs NOC: Which is right for your organization?

Read now

Endless IT possibilities

Boost your productivity with Atera’s intuitive, centralized all-in-one platform