Incident Response
A prepared, rehearsed process for handling security incidents that limits damage and speeds recovery when, not if, something goes wrong.
Preparing to Fail Well
No system is perfectly secure, so the question is not whether an incident will occur but how well the organization handles it when it does. Incident response is the structured process, defined in advance and rehearsed, for detecting, containing, eradicating, and recovering from security events. Improvising during a crisis wastes the time an attacker is using; a practiced plan preserves it.
The Lifecycle
- Preparation: plans, tools, roles, and training in place beforehand
- Detection and analysis: recognizing an incident and scoping it
- Containment: stopping the spread while preserving evidence
- Eradication: removing the attacker's foothold and root cause
- Recovery: restoring systems to trusted operation
- Lessons learned: improving defenses from what happened
Containment Trade-offs
Containment often forces hard choices under pressure: isolating a compromised system stops the attacker but also disrupts operations, and pulling the plug can destroy forensic evidence needed to understand the breach. These trade-offs are decided in advance, in the plan, so responders are not debating them mid-incident.
People and Communication
Technical steps are only half of it. Clear roles, decision authority, and communication, internal and, where required, external, determine whether a response is orderly or chaotic. Regular tabletop exercises reveal gaps before a real event does.
Fusion Context
For a fusion plant, incident response spans cyber and physical safety, and it must never conflict with the safety case. In the Hyperion breeder and burner designs, the independent safety instrumentation continues to protect the machine regardless of a cyber incident, so responders can contain an intrusion without the plant losing its last line of physical protection. Response plans are developed now, during the design phase, alongside the safety analysis.