State of the Practice of Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs)

Keeping organizational information assets secure in today's interconnected computing environment is a challenge that becomes more difficult with each new product and each new intruder tool. There is no one solution for securing information assets; instead a multi-layered security strategy is required. One of the layers that many organizations are including in their strategy today is a computer security incident response team, or CSIRT. This report provides an objective study of the state of the practice of incident response, based on information about how CSIRTs around the world are operating. It covers CSIRT services, projects, processes, structures, and literature, as well as training, legal, and operational issues. The report can serve as a resource both to new teams that are setting up their operations and to existing CSIRTs that are interested in benchmarking their operations.