What is a critical activity during the containment phase?

During the containment phase of an incident response, the primary focus is to limit the impact of a cybersecurity incident and prevent further damage. Implementing containment procedures is crucial because it directly involves strategies and actions taken to control the incident, mitigate its effects, and restore normal operations as quickly as possible. This may include isolating affected systems, applying temporary fixes, or redirecting traffic away from impacted resources to shield them from further harm.

The effectiveness of the containment measures can determine the overall outcome of the incident response effort, minimizing downtime and loss of data, and ensuring that recovery processes can begin before the incident escalates. While evaluating employee performance, updating software applications, and conducting audits may be necessary activities related to overall cybersecurity practices or future incident prevention, they do not specifically address the immediate needs of the containment phase during an active incident.