In the high-stakes world of cybersecurity, a security incident isn’t just a technical problem; it’s a crisis that can challenge an organization’s very foundation. The ability to detect, respond, and recover quickly and effectively is paramount. We had the distinct opportunity to sit down with Giorgio Perticone on our ScaleToZero podcast, a senior detection and response consultant at Vectra AI, to delve into the nuanced realities of this critical field. With over a decade of experience in system administration and a deep passion for digital forensics, Giorgio brings a unique, ground-level perspective forged not in academia, but in the crucible of real-world breaches.
Our conversation with Giorgio was a masterclass in pragmatic incident response, moving beyond theoretical frameworks to discuss the human elements, the strategic planning, and the tactical execution required to navigate a crisis. As a community builder and host of the “Security Break” podcast, Giorgio’s insights are both deeply technical and refreshingly accessible. Here, we unpack the key takeaways from our discussion, offering a blueprint for organizations aiming to mature their incident response capabilities.
You can read the complete transcript of the epiosde here >
From System Admin to Incident Responder: A Career Forged in Crisis
Giorgio’s path into incident response is a fascinating one, a story that resonates with many in the technical community who find their true calling by solving problems hands-on. He shared with us that his entry into the field was not a result of formal academic study—he dropped out of university with a passion for computers—but a direct consequence of a personal and professional crisis. While serving as a “one-man band” system administrator for an organization, he and the company suffered a series of breaches.
Taking the incidents “quite personal,” Giorgio realized he enjoyed the challenge of understanding what happened, how the attackers gained access, and how to evict them from the network. This experience was a powerful catalyst, leading him to pursue a full-time career in a field that he discovered he was passionate about. This origin story underscores a powerful truth: the most effective practitioners are often those who have experienced the pain and pressure of a breach firsthand, gaining invaluable knowledge that theory alone cannot provide.
From System Admin to Incident Responder: A Career Forged in Crisis
In a field often dominated by stories of catastrophic breaches, Giorgio shared a recent, particularly memorable incident that stood out precisely because it wasn’t as bad as it initially appeared. His team was called in by a customer concerned about a ransomware infection. The tell-tale signs were all there: numerous “ransom notes”—files demanding money in exchange for data—had been discovered across a device.
However, a careful investigation revealed a surprising twist. “There was no evidence of any infection or any exfiltration other than the files themselves that were written all over the device that was infected,” Giorgio explained. The conclusion was that an attacker had simply gained access to the host and placed the fake ransom notes in an attempt to scare the customer, without being able to execute any further malicious activity.
This unusual case offered a profound lesson: a security team must resist the urge to panic and instead focus on a thorough, calm analysis. It is a critical reminder that part of the job is accurately understanding the severity of a situation, which sometimes means discovering it’s “not that bad”. This incident highlights the essential balance between speed and accuracy in an incident response scenario.
The Pitfalls of Panic: Why Rushing an Investigation is Dangerous
The fake ransomware incident became a stark illustration of a core challenge in incident response: managing the emotional state of a customer. Giorgio noted that customers are often “very, very scared and very, very eager to see results” and want to know immediately if they can go back to business. The pressure to provide quick reassurance is immense, but a responsible analyst must take their time to ensure that all threats are truly neutralized.
Giorgio stressed that a complete investigation involves more than just addressing the immediate issue. It requires:
- Verifying safety: Ensuring the environment is truly safe before declaring the incident over.
- Addressing lateral movement: Confirming that the attacker did not move to other parts of the network.
- Searching for backdoors: Ensuring no hidden access points were left behind.
- Identifying initial access: Most importantly, finding out how the attacker got into the network in the first place and ensuring that the entry point is fixed to prevent a repeat attack.
Giorgio’s point here is crucial: rushing to remediate an incident without fully understanding the initial access point and a complete analysis only sets the organization up for a future breach. It is far better to have a measured, accurate response than a fast, incomplete one.
Building a Resilient Incident Response Plan: Process and Awareness
Effective incident response is not a matter of improvisation during a crisis; it is the result of meticulous planning and preparation. When we asked Giorgio about the key components of an incident response plan, he broke them down into two critical pillars: processes and technical awareness.
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The Defined Process: A Blueprint for Crisis
The single biggest challenge Giorgio encounters is organizations that lack a defined process at all. He lamented that many organizations treat every new incident as if it’s the first, leading to panic and inefficiency. An effective process answers fundamental questions before a crisis hits:
* **What to do?** Having a clear, step-by-step guide for what actions to take.
* **Who to call?** Knowing exactly which individuals and teams to involve.
* **Who to involve?** Defining the key stakeholders, including non-technical departments like legal, finance, and public relations.The goal is to avoid scrambling to find the right people who may be unavailable, on vacation, or simply unaware of what to do.
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Environmental Awareness and Visibility
On the technical side, Giorgio identified a lack of awareness of the environment and visibility as major hurdles. In the most difficult cases, the customer doesn’t even know what they are looking at. They might not know what a compromised host is supposed to do, or whether they are allowed to shut it down and who has the authority to do so. The bigger the organization, the more difficult it is to know everything about the environment.
This lack of visibility and awareness extends to: * Device inventory: Lacking a comprehensive list of all devices and their purpose. * Access control: Not knowing who has access to which devices. * Data extraction: Being unprepared to safely pull data from a compromised host for analysis without a risk of being on the same network as the attackers.
The Importance of Testing: Running a Full-Scale Simulation
Creating an incident response plan is only half the battle. As Giorgio pointed out, it’s even rarer for an organization to actually test its plan. He emphasized that a true test goes far beyond a simple pen-test of technical vulnerabilities. A proper simulation must involve all stakeholders to validate the entire process, not just the technical steps.
A full-scale simulation should involve:
- Non-technical departments: Bringing in legal, public relations, and finance to test their roles and response times.
- C-level involvement: Verifying that C-level executives who need to make critical business decisions, such as shutting down a domain controller, are available, understand the implications, and can act quickly.
- Global coordination: Ensuring that key personnel in different time zones can be reached and are prepared to respond, as waiting for someone to wake up can be too late.
