In time of attack, incident responser analyst is very important role for the safety of the system. Especially since more and more attack happened and manifest itself every day. Sometimes, the preventive measure put into the environment is not enough to defend system. Thus, an first responder is task to deal with the event.
What is Incident Responser Analyst
Incident responser analyst also known as IR analyst is someone that respond to an attack by determining best action needed to minimize the effect on the company’s network, digital assets, and system. usually part of SOC team that monitor SIEM everyday.
You will not be the one that directly handle the event but you will be working with first responder and give them advise on how to deal with the breach. Sometimes, you will need to work with law enforcement.
You will also be task to maintain the company network in larger scale. Overall, your duty is to assess, monitor, test and improve the company’s cybersecurity system. Thus, you might also task to help with determining security policies, protocol and training that can help the company to have better respond when incidents happened.
Sometimes, you also need to do risk assessment on the attack before deploying any respond to make sure that the method would not worsen the impact. This job comes with high pressure so as an IR analyst, you need to keep your head cool even under pressure and time limit.
Especially since you will be guiding the respond team to execute rapid solution during cyber-attack and at the same time making sure that the network is cleaned from any consequences that happened because of the attack. That way the security department can deploy patches to secure the network and prevent further damage when attack happened in the future.
Job Responsibilities and Duties
As incident responser analyst you are responsible to provide response to cyber-attack and collaborating on building various security project to improve the company’s cybersecurity. Here are some of your responsibilities as IR analyst:
- Give support to response team and guide them during cyber-attack and making sure that everything is documented, mitigate, assessed and contained.
- Providing support to cyber investigator as well as contributing to various scale of cybersecurity breaches.
- Analyze and review cyber attack and provide support as well as train junior level analyst
- Assist and interact with the other investigation department during critical and time sensitive investigation
- Participate in technical specialist team to do coordinated response as well as repair measure on cyber attack
- Monitor security policy enrollment to make sure they are effective and give enough security coverage for all of the company’s environment, platform, system and application
- Become the liaison between various cybersecurity department within the company to make sure that the project implementation are effective and can meet the IR requirements
- Working with various cybersecurity department within the company and partner company to create productive, and effective relationship
- Creating basic requirement for security monitoring on all of the company’s service, network, project and application.
- Facilitating the development and implementation of cybersecurity rules to make sure the effectiveness
Job Qualifications
To become incident responser analyst you need to have certain qualification in both response technique as well as cybersecurity. Here are some of the qualification that you need to have to get the job:
Education
You need to have the right education to gain the right knowledge necessary to work as IR analyst. It is recommended for you to at least have bachelor degree but having master degree will also put you in more favor to the employer.
You need to have degree in field related to computer such as computer science, information assurance and many other. But some degrees are preferred more such as cybersecurity degree, network forensics, computer forensic degree, intrusion investigation, etc.
Certification
Getting additional education besides your university is very beneficial and even mandatory if you want to work in this field. With these additional educations you will gain certification required for the skills needed on the job, that way, you will become more appealing to the employer.
Certification actually have more benefit than just increasing your odds of getting the job since it equipped you with additional knowledge and abilities which really help you to be more effective in the job. There are a few certifications that you need to get to be working in this field such as:
CREA certification
This certification will give you knowledge and skill needed to do reverse engineer on malware used during cyberattack done to the network. As IR analyst it is important for you to understand how malware function as it can help you when giving advise to response team during attack. It will also help you to assess the amount of risk the responses will get.
GCIH certification
This certification will give you knowledge and skill related to security needed to detect cyber-attack faster and give you better ability that can be use to resolve and respond to the incident.
That way, you can give better guidance to the response team so threat can be neutralized as fast as it could and prevent it from damaging the network further.
Cybersecurity certification
In most cases this certification is a must have if you want to be hired as IR analyst. The certification will proof that you have the enough understanding and right knowledge on cybersecurity.
- GCIA certification
- CERT-CCSIH certification
- GCFA certification
- CCFE certification
- CEH certification
- GREM certification
- Experience
Prior working as IR analyst you need to have experience in field related to cybersecurity in entry-level position. Usually, employer prefers if you have working experience in cybersecurity team for similar company as their own. You can try to get a job as system administrator or security and network administrator to get relevant experience.
Then you also need to have around 2 to 3 years of experience working as respond team and get your CSIRT certification. Once you get the certification, you still need to get more skill and knowledge from senior cybersecurity professional to increase your qualification.
Skills Requirements
Incident responser analyst comes with a lot of responsibilities, that is why you need to have certain skill if you want have this job. There are a few skills sets that are needed which consist of both technical and soft skills. Both are equally as important if you want to become the best IR analyst. Some of the skills needed includes:
- Able to use monitoring tools
Monitory tools are used to see activities inside the system and application to identify error and find performance issue. That is why you need to be able to use these tools since it can be used to determine steps needed in solving the issues during cyber attack
- Able to use forensics software
This software is used to analyze digital media when it run to find out which program that is exploited and what it is used for. You as IR analyst will use it to determine the source of the breach so you can start working from the source to lessen issue as well as preventing the same thing to happen again.
- Able to use eDiscovery tools
These tools are used to review and tag electronic documents that can be use in legal proceedings. You will use this tool to submit documents to the court to maintain the intellectual property’s legal propriety which stolen during breach.
- Persistence
You need to be able to keep going even when the situation become more and more chaotic during cyber-attack. It is important to give up your time and energy so you can effectively overcome any attack that threaten the company.
- Being versatile
You need to be versatile if you want to work in this field. Especially since you need to constantly adjust your action and plan as the situation unfold. Ability to adjust and being flexible will help you to find the right solution that you might overlook.
- Good communicator
Since your task is to give guidance to response team and find solution during cyber attack and help them clean up damage, that means you need to be a good communicator. You must be able to deliver your ideas and intention effectively to the rest of the team member. You also need to concisely and clearly deliver your instruction so they can react immediately.
Conclusion
It is not easy if you want to be IR analyst. You will go through long and difficult journey to earn the right skill and education. Besides earning the right skills, certification and degree, you also need to find experience by working in the related field. It may make you feel overwhelmed during the process.
Furthermore, if you want to be successful in the field you need to be dedicated. You also need to work on the needed soft skill since it is something that cannot be taught. Fortunately, the hard skill can be earned while you go.
The best thing is, working opportunity in cybersecurity is very large since this field has the biggest growth. So, if you find incident responser analyst career interesting then you might want to do start your journey right away.
Description: Incident responser analyst is someone that respond to an attack by determining best action needed to minimize the effect, learn more here.
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