Prepared by: Cameron Paddy, Senior DFIR Analyst
After a cyber incident, organisations need clear, defensible answers to what happened, how it happened, what data was accessed, and what to do next. This blog explains why engaging a professional incident response (IR) team, independent from day‑to‑day IT operations, produces better outcomes than relying solely on internal IT teams.
Objectivity and lack of conflict
Internal IT teams are often responsible for systems design, operation and monitoring. Asking them to determine whether controls failed, or for how long a threat actor was present, can create real or perceived conflicts of interest. Independent IR teams provide a neutral assessment focused on facts and evidence.
Forensic discipline
Professional IR teams work to forensic standards: acquiring evidence safely, maintaining chain‑of‑custody, and documenting decisions. This supports legal, regulatory and insurance processes and reduces the risk of evidence contamination or loss.
Breadth of exposure
IR specialists see diverse attacker tradecraft across sectors and tools every week. That exposure helps them recognise indicators faster, avoid common blind spots, and anticipate persistence or re‑entry techniques.
Clear decision support
An IR investigation translates technical findings into decisions for executives and boards, reporting obligations, customer communications, regulator engagement, and remediation priorities, without operational bias.
Internal IT
Professional IR
Both are essential, but they are not the same job. In a significant incident, the IR team leads the investigation; IT enables access, executes containment changes, and restores services under IR guidance.
Shortened timelines
Recent activity is misinterpreted as “day one”, overlooking weeks of earlier access and persistence.
Evidence loss
Reimaging devices, deleting logs, or resetting accounts too early destroys artefacts needed to prove access, exfiltration, or scope.
Incomplete scoping
Focus on the obvious system misses lateral movement via identity, remote access gateways, or cloud integrations.
Premature communication
Announcements made before scoping is complete require later corrections and undermine trust with customers and regulators.
Re‑compromise
Containment that changes passwords but leaves implants, scheduled tasks, or remote tools in place leads to attacker return.
1) Reliable timeline
Establishes initial access, privilege escalation, lateral movement, actions on objectives, persistence, and exit. This supports risk assessment and targeted remediation.
2) Data impact analysis
Identifies what data was accessed or taken, and how—critical to determine if notification is required and who is affected.
3) Containment and eradication plan
Coordinated steps that remove the attacker comprehensively (including identity, endpoints, remote access and cloud), timed to avoid tipping the attacker.
4) Evidence packages
Preserved artefacts and clear documentation for insurers, legal counsel, and, if needed, law enforcement.
5) Remediation roadmap
Prioritised actions to prevent recurrence (hardening identity, MFA on exposed services, segmentation, monitoring, backup validation, tabletop exercises).
IR teams are trained to recognise these patterns across logs and telemetry, even when artefacts are sparse or partially overwritten.
Single incident lead.
The IR lead coordinates technical workstreams and executive updates.
Access and visibility.
IT grants log and endpoint access, and assists with emergency telemetry enablement.
Change execution.
IT implements containment and hardening steps on instruction from IR.
Business continuity.
IT prioritises service restoration in a way that doesn’t compromise evidence or containment.
Isn’t our MSP/IT team enough?
They are essential partners, but independence, forensic rigour and breadth of exposure are critical for defensible outcomes in significant incidents.
When should we call IR?
As soon as you suspect unauthorised access, data theft or ransomware staging. Early involvement preserves evidence and reduces overall impact and downtime.
What if we’re already remediating?
Pause disruptive actions that might destroy evidence. Engage IR to validate scope and sequence a safe, comprehensive containment.
Do we still need to notify if data wasn’t exfiltrated?
Notification depends on what data was accessed and applicable laws. A structured IR investigation provides the facts to decide with legal counsel.
This blog is written for Australian organisations and assumes alignment with common regulatory expectations for breach notification and evidence handling.
