Advanced Incident Handling

This five-day course, designed for computer security incident response team (CSIRT) technical personnel with several months of incident handling experience, addresses techniques for detecting and responding to current and emerging computer security threats and attacks that are targeted at a variety of operating systems and architectures.

Building on the methods and tools discussed in the Fundamentals of Incident Handling course, this course provides guidance that incident handlers can use in responding to system compromises at the privileged (root or administrator) level. Through interactive instruction, facilitated discussions, and group exercises, instructors help participants identify and analyze a set of events and then propose appropriate response strategies.

Participants work as a team throughout the week to handle a series of escalating incidents that are presented as part of an ongoing scenario. Work includes team analysis of information and presentation of findings and response strategies. Participants also review broader aspects of CSIRT work such as computer forensics, artifact analysis; vulnerability handling; and the development of advisories, alerts, and management briefings.

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

Who should attend?

• current computer security incident response team (CSIRT) technical staff with three to six months incident handling experience
• system and network administrators responsible for identifying and responding to security incidents

Topics

• understanding issues and challenges in handling privilege compromise incidents
• detecting, analyzing, and responding to various types of malicious activity such as the use of rootkits, botnets, and distributed denial of service attacks
• responding to insider threats and attacks
• handling major computer security events and incidents
• understanding the role of computer forensic analysis in incident handling
• performing artifact analysis
• understanding the fundamental causes of vulnerabilities
• analyzing and coordinating response to reported vulnerabilities
• publishing effective CSIRT information

Objectives

• detect and characterize various attack types
• understand the complexity of and effectively respond to privileged and major events and incidents within your CSIRT
• gain a practical understanding of various methods for analyzing artifacts left on a compromised system
• explore new developments in the area of computer forensics
• obtain practical experience in the analysis of vulnerabilities and the coordination of vulnerability handling tasks
• formulate effective advisories, alerts, and management briefings

Prerequisites

Before registering for this course, it is recommended that participants attend the Fundamentals of Incident Handling course. It is also recommended that participants have the following:

• at least three to six months of incident handling experience
• an understanding of Internet services and protocols
• experience with the administration of Windows and Unix systems
• an understanding of basic programming concepts
• experience with various types of computer security attacks, response strategies, incident handling tools

It is recommended but not required that participants also have experience programming in C, Perl, Java, or similar languages.

Materials

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

Schedule

This five-day course meets at the following times:
Days 1-4, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Day 5, 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.