Solidify your Exchange Server security incident response plan
Do you ever feel like you're wearing too many hats in your job as an IT professional? Even if
you're a dedicated Exchange Server administrator, you probably have a lot of other
responsibilities. However, you may not have thought about security incident response.
Incident response is the science of responding to security breaches. In the
context of Exchange management, it's the process of detecting security incidents within your
messaging environment and responding to them in a methodical fashion to minimize damage.
Exchange Server-related security incidents might include:
- Malware outbreaks
- Denial of service
- Exploitation of patches
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This was first published in March 2010
- by a rogue insider
- Account enumeration/user harvesting
- Data leakage
- Password cracking
- Spam relaying
- Data leakage
With each of these incidents, there are specific steps you'll need to take in order to recover
from the attack. From penetration analysis to forensics investigation, incident response requires
hands-on technical knowledge as well as higher-level business process expertise.
Some steps you'll need to take will be technical, such as creating an Exchange and Windows
server log review, running network protocol analysis and administering system patches. Others steps
will be more operational in nature -- creating and instating documentation and policy tweaks.
The reality is that you need to have solid incident response procedures in place. If not, you're
more likely to react rather than respond, which ultimately leads to increased
business risks.
Figure 1 outlines the necessary components for correctly handling Exchange Server breaches:
Figure 1. Essential elements of a good Exchange incident response plan
Although many Exchange Server-related security incidents can be prevented in the first place,
you'll still need some documented guidance to refer to when you do need it. Remember, a breach can
snowball and affect your Exchange incident response, encompassing your entire network -- from
applications to databases to mobile devices.
If your Exchange Server organization is developing an incident response plan, it's helpful to
start small, base it around your Exchange environment and build out from there. This will keep you
ahead of the pack and prepared for the worst.
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