NIST guide provides way to tackle cybersecurity incidents with recovery plan, playbook

"Defense! Defense!" may be the rallying cry from cybersecurity teams working to thwart cybersecurity attacks, but perhaps they should be shouting "Recover! Recover!" instead. Attackers are increasingly racking up points against their targets, so the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the Guide for Cybersecurity Event Recovery to help organizations develop a game plan to contain the opponent and get back on the field quickly. As the number of cybersecurity incidents climbs, and the variety of types of attacks grows, "It's no longer if you are going to have a cybersecurity event, it is when," said computer scientist Murugiah Souppaya, one of the guide's authors. For example, the number of companies experiencing ransomware events, in which attackers hold an organization's data hostage until the ransom is paid, have tripled between the first and third quarters of 2016 alone, according to the December 2016 Kaspersky Security Bulletin .