Fundamentals of Incident Handling

World-renowned CMU-SEI (Carnegie Mellon University - Software Engineering Institute) course on Incident Handling^*

This 5-day course is for computer security incident response team (CSIRT) technical staff who have little or no incident handling experience. It provides a strong introduction to the main incident handling tasks and critical thinking skills that will help an incident handler perform their daily work. It is recommended for personnel new to incident handling work.

The course is designed to provide insight into the work that an incident handler may perform. It provides a comprehensive overview of the incident handling arena, including CSIRT services, intruder threats, and the nature of incident response activities.

Course attendees will learn how to gather the information required to handle an incident; realise the importance of having and following pre-defined CSIRT policies and procedures; understand the technical issues relating to commonly reported attack types; perform analysis and response tasks for various sample incidents; apply critical thinking skills in responding to incidents, and identify potential problems to avoid while taking part in CSIRT work. The course incorporates interactive instruction, practical exercises, and role playing. Attendees have the opportunity to participate in sample incidents that they might face on a day-to-day basis.

This course is part of the curriculum for the CERT-Certified Incident Handler program. After completing this course, participants are encouraged to attend the companion course, Advanced Incident Handling.

Note: There is significant content overlap between this course and the Managing Computer Security Incident Response Teams course. We recommend that attendees register for one course or the other, but not both. This course covers more technical topics such as email and malware attacks, PGP, and recognising signs of attack. It is designed to introduce new incident handlers to the basic skills and processes they will need to perform duties. Whereas the Managing CSIRTs course focuses on incident handling issues from an operational management perspective.

^*World leading course

This course is presented in association with Axenic, a member of the SEI (Software Engineering Institute) Partner Network, Carnegie Mellon University. SEI is a recognised world leader and one of the most respected names in computer, software and security research, development and education. Other courses in this series are:

Advanced Incident Handling
Creating a Computer Security Incident Response Team
Managing Computer Security Incident Response Teams

Learning outcomes

This Fundamentals of Incident Handling course will help participants to:

• recognise the importance of following well-defined processes, policies, and procedures
• understand the technical, communication, and coordination issues involved in providing a CSIRT service
• critically analyse and assess the impact of computer security incidents
• effectively build and coordinate response strategies for various types of computer security incidents

Who should attend

• new CSIRT technical staff (one to three months of experience)
• experienced CSIRT staff who would like to benchmark their CSIRT processes and skill sets against best practices
• anyone who would like to learn about basic incident handling functions and activities

Course contents

• understanding the CSIRT environment and basic incident management processes
• CSIRT code of conduct
• understanding security tools and technologies used by CSIRTs
• identifying and gathering critical information
• recognising signs of attacks
• detecting and analysing incidents
• finding contact information
• coordinating response and disseminating information
• handling email and malicious code attacks
• working with law enforcement

Course fees

Prerequisites

Before registering for this course, participants must be familiar with Internet services and protocols. It is recommended but not required that participants have some experience with system administration for Windows or UNIX systems.

Materials

Participants will receive a course notebook and a CD containing the course materials.

Certificate of Completion

Participants will receive a SEI–CERT branded Certificate of Completion.

CERT-Certified Computer Security Incident Handler

SEI has available the CERT-Certified Computer Security Incident Handler (CSIH) certification program.  The awarding of the certification is upon application to SEI and is based on a combination of demonstrable experience plus performance in the CSIH certification examination.  For further details please refer to this link.