Applied Incident Response

Incident response is critical for the active defense of any network, and incident responders need up-to-date, immediately applicable techniques with which to engage the adversary. Applied Incident Response details effective ways to respond to advanced attacks against local and remote network resources, providing proven response techniques and a framework through which to apply them. As a starting point for new incident handlers, or as a technical reference for hardened IR veterans, this book details the latest techniques for responding to threats against your network, including:

• Preparing your environment for effective incident response
• Leveraging MITRE ATT&CK and threat intelligence for active network defense
• Local and remote triage of systems using PowerShell, WMIC, and open-source tools
• Acquiring RAM and disk images locally and remotely
• Analyzing RAM with Volatility and Rekall
• Deep-dive forensic analysis of system drives using open-source or commercial tools
• Leveraging Security Onion and Elastic Stack for network security monitoring
• Techniques for log analysis and aggregating high-value logs
• Static and dynamic analysis of malware with YARA rules, FLARE VM, and Cuckoo Sandbox
• Detecting and responding to lateral movement techniques, including pass-the-hash, pass-the-ticket, Kerberoasting, malicious use of PowerShell, and many more
• Effective threat hunting techniques
• Adversary emulation with Atomic Red Team
• Improving preventive and detective controls

Steve Anson is a SANS Certified Instructor and co-founder of leading IT security company Forward Defense. He has over 20 years of experience investigating cybercrime and network intrusion incidents. As a former US federal agent, Steve specialized in intrusion investigations for the FBI and DoD. He has taught incident response and digital forensics techniques to thousands of students around the world on behalf of the FBI Academy, US Department of State, and the SANS Institute. He has assisted governments in over 50 countries to improve their strategic and tactical response to computer-facilitated crimes and works with a range of multinational organizations to prevent, detect and respond to network security incidents.