Ransom Away — Incident Response Playbook for IT Teams

Ransom Away — Incident Response Playbook for IT Teams### Executive summary

Ransom Away — Incident Response Playbook for IT Teams is a practical, step-by-step guide that equips IT teams to prepare for, detect, contain, eradicate, and recover from ransomware incidents. This playbook emphasizes rapid decision-making, clear roles and responsibilities, evidence preservation, communication, and post-incident improvement. Use it as a living document that adapts to your environment, tools, and regulatory requirements.

1. Purpose and scope

Purpose: provide a repeatable, prioritized set of actions for IT teams to follow during a ransomware event to minimize operational, financial, legal, and reputational damage.

Scope: covers preparation, detection, triage, containment, eradication, recovery, communication, legal/insurance considerations, forensic evidence handling, and post-incident lessons. Applies to on-premises, cloud, hybrid environments, and third-party suppliers.

2. Roles and responsibilities

Incident Commander (IC): overall decision-maker; coordinates cross-functional response.
Technical Lead: oversees detection, containment, eradication, and recovery steps.
Forensics Lead: preserves evidence, coordinates with external investigators.
Communications Lead: manages internal/external messaging and liaison with PR.
Legal Counsel: advises on regulatory reporting, evidence handling, and potential ransom/legal implications.
HR/People Lead: supports affected employees and enforces policies (password resets, device isolation).
Vendor Liaison: coordinates with backup, security vendors, and law enforcement contacts.
Finance/Insurance Lead: manages ransom negotiations if necessary, activates cyber insurance.

For smaller organizations, combine roles but ensure accountability.

3. Preparation (before an incident)

Asset inventory: maintain an up-to-date inventory of devices, users, services, data repositories, and critical business processes.
Backup strategy: implement 3-2-1 backups (3 copies, 2 media types, 1 offsite) with immutable snapshots and regular restore testing.
Network segmentation: segment networks to limit lateral movement; use VLANs, zero-trust principles, and strict ACLs.
Endpoint protection: deploy EDR with behavioral detection, enable application control/whitelisting, enforce least privilege.
Patch management: prioritize critical patches for internet-facing systems and identity systems (AD, Azure AD).
Identity & access management: enforce MFA everywhere, use conditional access, and limit administrative accounts.
Logging & monitoring: centralize logs (SIEM), keep logs immutable for at least 90 days, baseline normal activity.
Playbooks & runbooks: maintain and test incident response playbooks and tabletop exercises quarterly.
Third-party readiness: ensure contracts, SLAs, and contacts for forensic vendors, MSSPs, and cyber insurers.
Communication plan: pre-draft internal and external templates; list regulators and reporting requirements by jurisdiction.
Legal & compliance: clarify breach notification thresholds, regulatory timelines, and preservation orders.
Training: regular phishing simulations and role-based incident drills.
Offline recovery resources: maintain an isolated recovery environment and offline backups; store admin credentials securely offline.

4. Detection and initial triage

Detection sources:

Endpoint alerts (EDR)
SIEM / IDS / NDR
User reports (encrypted files, ransom notes)
Backup failures or unusual backup deletions
Abnormal authentication patterns (impossible travel, mass password failures)

Initial triage checklist:

Validate: confirm whether artifacts indicate active ransomware (file encryption extensions, ransom note, stopped services).
Scope: identify affected hosts, users, services, and data. Use network scanning and EDR query.
Containment priority: prioritize systems critical to business continuity (mail, AD, ERP) and potential spread vectors (file shares, backup servers).
Evidence preservation: take volatile memory snapshots, collect logs, preserve disk images where possible. Document chain-of-custody.
Notify IC and stand up the incident response team.

5. Containment strategies

Short-term containment (hours):

Isolate infected endpoints from network (switch/port disable, disable Wi‑Fi, unplug).
Quarantine affected accounts (disable or force password reset) and block suspicious IPs/domains at perimeter devices.
Stop replication: pause AD replication or other critical syncs only if required and after IC approval.
Prevent backup systems from connecting to infected networks; protect backups by putting them offline or in air-gapped mode.
Deploy network-level blocks (NGFW rules) for known command-and-control (C2) infrastructure.

Long-term containment (days):

Implement temporary network segmentation to isolate affected segments.
Rebuild jump servers and bastion hosts with hardened images.
Rotate credentials for service accounts with wide access; use new keys and secrets.
Disable vulnerable services until patched.

Containment notes:

Avoid widespread reboots or mass shutdowns unless necessary—some actions may destroy volatile evidence. Coordinate with Forensics Lead.
Maintain secure communication channels (out-of-band) for response team coordination.

6. Eradication

Identify root cause: compromise vector (phishing, RDP, exposed service, third-party compromise).
Remove malware: use EDR to remove malicious binaries, scheduled tasks, and persistence mechanisms.
Clean accounts: remove unauthorized admin accounts, clear suspicious group memberships.
Patch & harden: apply critical patches, disable unnecessary services, and reconfigure vulnerable settings.
Rebuild vs. clean debate: prefer full rebuilds of compromised systems from known-good images; only clean if fully confident in eradication.
Validate: scan rebuilt systems with multiple AV/EDR tools and confirm no persistence remains.

7. Recovery

Recovery plan steps:

Prioritize systems for recovery based on business impact analysis.
Restore from the most recent clean backup; verify integrity and scan backups for malware before reconnecting to production networks.
Reintroduce recovered systems into isolated recovery network for monitoring.
Gradually reconnect systems with monitoring in place; validate business processes and data integrity.
Rotate all credentials that existed at time of compromise, including service accounts, API keys, and secrets.
Monitor for recurrence: intensify log review, watch for telemetry spikes, and re-run threat hunts for indicators of compromise (IOCs).
Document recovery actions, timestamps, and approvals.

If backups are unavailable:

Consider clean rebuilds and manual data recovery from immutable logs, exports, or replication sources.
Engage cyber-insurance and legal counsel early if ransom payment is being considered; document costs and approvals.

8. Communications and stakeholder management

Internal communications:

Use pre-approved templates; inform executives, impacted business units, and employees about scope and required actions (e.g., disconnect devices, change passwords).
Provide clear instructions to users: what to do (disconnect), what not to do (do not power down specific servers), and where to report symptoms.

External communications:

Coordinate with Legal and PR. Prepare statements for customers, partners, regulators, and media.
Avoid detailed technical revelations publicly; focus on impact, mitigation steps, and next updates.
Preserve evidence and adhere to disclosure timelines required by law (e.g., GDPR, state breach laws).

Law enforcement:

Report to appropriate law enforcement agencies (e.g., local cybercrime unit, FBI IC3 in U.S.) as advised by Legal. Provide forensic artifacts as requested.

9. Legal, regulatory, and insurance considerations

Notification obligations: know breach thresholds and reporting windows for jurisdictions where you operate.
Evidence handling: follow chain-of-custody and non‑destructive collection. Consult counsel before disclosing sensitive logs.
Insurance: notify cyber insurer promptly; follow policy requirements to maintain coverage. Coordinate with insurer-approved vendors when required.
Ransom decisions: involve Legal, IC, Board, and insurance. Document all communications and approvals. Consider legal/regulatory risks of payment.

10. Forensics and evidence preservation

Prioritize preservation of volatile data (memory dumps, running processes, network sockets) before rebooting systems.
Make forensic images of disks; calculate and record hashes.
Collect logs from endpoints, servers, firewalls, proxies, and cloud platforms. Preserve timestamps and time synchronization records.
Use write-blockers and standard forensic tools; maintain chain-of-custody documentation.
Engage external forensic specialists for in-depth analysis or if legal action is anticipated.

11. Post-incident activities

Post-incident review: conduct a blameless after-action review within 72 hours of containment. Capture timeline, decisions, successes, failures, and gaps.
Update playbooks: incorporate lessons learned, signatures/IOCs, and tested improvements.
Remediation roadmap: assign tasks with owners and deadlines (patching, segmentation, training).
Continuous testing: increase phishing simulations, tabletop exercises, and restore testing cadence.
Evidence retention: store incident artifacts securely for legal and insurance needs.

12. Tooling and checklist examples

Sample quick-check checklist for first 2 hours:

Notify IC and assemble response team.
Isolate affected endpoints.
Snapshot memory and collect logs.
Identify scope via EDR/SIEM queries.
Protect backups (disconnect or air-gap).
Disable compromised accounts.
Begin communications using templates.

Recommended tooling (examples):

EDR: CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
SIEM/Log Management: Splunk, Elastic, Azure Sentinel.
Forensics: FTK, Autopsy, EnCase.
Backup: Veeam, Rubrik, Cohesity with immutable snapshots.
Network: Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco Secure Firewall.

13. Sample incident timeline (concise)

T+0–30m: Detection, validation, IC notified.
T+30–90m: Containment actions (isolate hosts, protect backups).
T+2–8h: Forensic collection, scope identification.
T+8–72h: Eradication steps, rebuild planning.
Day 3–14: Recovery, credential rotation, monitoring.
Week 2–6: Post-incident review, remediation tracking.

14. Appendix: quick playbook snippets

User notification snippet: “Do not power off or unplug your device. Disconnect from the network and contact IT immediately at [phone/email].”
Forensics evidence note template: include hostnames, IPs, timestamps (UTC), hash values, collector name, and collection method.
Backup verification command examples (platform-specific) should be stored in your runbooks.

This playbook is a template — tailor it to your environment, regulatory needs, and organizational structure. Keep it updated and exercise it regularly so that when ransomware knocks, your team responds fast and effectively.

Ransom Away — Incident Response Playbook for IT Teams