Incident response and recovery services for UK businesses

Today, all organisations have an imperative need to respond to and recover from cyber-attacks. A successful response and recovery relies on the entire organisation being prepared and drawing on various capabilities, including technical cyber incident response and recovery, IT incident management, IT disaster recovery, business continuity, crisis management and operational resilience.

These capabilities are increasingly crucial as ransomware attacks and the crises they can trigger are becoming increasingly complex, with malicious threat actors constantly evolving their tools and techniques to have as much impact as possible.

To complicate matters, businesses depend on interconnected and interdependent IT, while regulations are strict, and public expectation of transparency is high. GDPR and NIS, for example, require organisations to respond within 72 hours or face significant fines.

In addition, operational resilience is a critical regulatory requirement for many industries, focusing on cyber security as companies become more technology-reliant.

Bringing in an incident response provider in the middle of an incident without a contract can significantly delay response simply because onboarding will take significant time.

In this environment, organisations must have well-documented and exercised plans and processes in place, ready to go when a cyber incident or crisis occurs. These plans should encompass the entire organisation – from technical first responders to functional teams, business units and strategic decision-makers.

Benefits of an effective cyber incident response and recovery plan

Rapid response
An effective incident response plan will deliver a clearly defined response framework with support governance, clear ownership, pre-agreed decision-making authority and escalation pathways, all enabling more rapid response when needed.

Integrated response
The response and recovery capability spans both business and technical concerns, drawing on broad cross-organisational capabilities; ensuring you have the right people engaged from the outset.

Increased readiness
People, processes, and tools are rehearsed and ready to respond when a cyber-attack occurs, building a strong ‘muscle memory’ that can be quickly triggered.

Emerging stronger
Business-as-usual operations are quickly restored, and lessons learned are identified and addressed to help prevent recurrence, enhancing overall operational resilience.

Our approach to cyber incident response and recovery

Our incident response and recovery team has a broad range of capabilities that help us support a cyber crisis or incident’s preparation, response and recovery phases.

“Covenco has an exceptional ability to blend technical skill and experience with hardware. No other IR provider has the combined know-how and equipment to react better.”
Incident response customer.

Incident Response Services delivered by Covenco:

• Assess to identify gaps in your current response and recovery capabilities and help to address these.
• Identify the critical cyber threat scenarios you must prepare for, ensuring that the most plausible and potentially damaging scenarios are considered.
• Create scenario response playbooks and technical runbooks to help ensure a coordinated response, covering highly technical step-by-step guidance through to organisational and strategic decision-making support.
• Define response frameworks and the underpinning processes.
• Ensure business continuity plans help maintain the most important business services in the event of a cyber-attack.
• Ensure you have the right forensic data and technology available to thoroughly investigate a crisis or incident and inform a containment strategy.
• Create response and recovery training and coaching materials and deliver these through a range of mediums, targeting both technical-level teams and senior management.
• Run tailored exercises ranging from discussion-based ‘plan walk-throughs’ to immersive, interactive multi-team dynamic simulation exercises and war games for teams from technical experts through to senior leadership level.

On-demand incident response services

We can also provide on-demand support from our specialist cyber incident response team to prepare and manage your broader organisational response. This includes:

• Workshops to understand your IT estate and existing incident response policies and procedures.
• On-site and remote response SLAs.
• 24/7 emergency response hotline.
• Real-time virtual communication with a dedicated incident response team.
• Crisis preparedness support where it is needed from board-level to first-responder teams.
• Access to our customised incident reporting templates.
• Any unused retainer hours/days can be spent on other incident response services.
• Access to a range of threat intelligence services and detailed reporting to inform your wider security strategy.

Our incident response contracts are available in three tiers. We pride ourselves in providing the highest level of service, regardless of the tier chosen. We apply what we believe to be three essential qualities across our incident response retainer tiers:

1. Bronze
2. Gold
3. Platinum

Covenco is unique in our incident response offering. We don’t simply provide remote incident response; we actively deliver practical on-site support to get you up and running faster.  Our incident response services include:

• Cloud backups with air-gapped and immutable capabilities. Our Veeam Cloud Connect solutions mean your data is always available and clean of infection.
• Ship-to-site mobile hardware, including servers, storage and network equipment, in a ready-to-go state 24/7/365
• Boots-on-the-ground expertise from trained and experienced incident response technicians. We arrive on-site with your data pre-loaded to our mobile hardware – and we remain with you to help re-establish your networks and systems.

Covenco Incident Response Contracts: What Are the Benefits for UK Businesses?

Here are some of the key benefits of a Covenco incident response contract for UK businesses:

A rapid and effective response to reduce the impact of a cyber security incident:
When a cyber security incident occurs, time is of the essence. With Covenco as your contracted incident response provider, we can quickly identify and contain the threat, mitigate the damage, and restore operations as soon as possible. This can help to minimise the financial and reputational impact on your business.

We gain an understanding of your organisation across technical, strategic, legal and crisis management priorities:
Covenco will take the time to understand your organisation’s specific needs and priorities. This includes understanding your technical infrastructure, your business processes, and your regulatory obligations. This in-depth understanding allows us to provide you with a tailored response that’s designed to protect your most critical assets.

Customisable service agreements to suit your business requirements:
Covenco’s incident response contracts can be customised to meet the specific needs of your business. This includes factors such as the size and complexity of your organisation, the types of cyber threats you face, and your budget. This ensures that you are getting the level of protection that you need at a price that you can afford.

Availability of relevant documentation and data to demonstrate compliance to stakeholders and regulators:
In the event of a cyber security incident, businesses may be required to provide documentation and data to stakeholders and regulators. Covenco can help you to collect and organise this information in a timely and efficient manner. This can help to demonstrate that you have taken all reasonable steps to protect your organisation from cyber threats and to mitigate the impact of any incidents that may occur.

Overall, a Covenco incident response contract can provide you with a number of significant benefits. By having a team of experts on standby to help you respond to cybersecurity incidents, you can minimise the impact of these incidents on their operations and reputation.

In addition to the benefits listed above, Covenco’s incident response contracts can also help UK businesses to:

• Improve cyber security posture:
  By working with Covenco as your Cyber Incident Response provider, businesses can learn from the latest cyber threats and trends and implement appropriate security measures.
• Reduce the cost of responding to incidents:
  Covenco has the expertise and resources to respond to incidents quickly and effectively, which can help you save money in the long run.

Overall, a Covenco Incident Response Contract is a valuable investment for any UK business that wants to protect itself from the growing threat of cyber security incidents.

Selecting your cyber incident response partner

Covenco has the expertise, experience, hardware, and tools to react quickly to any cyber incident, including ransomware. We combine software and skills with ship-to-site hardware and boots-on-the-ground so you can get back up and running as quickly as possible.

Covenco also features dedicated Disaster Recovery Suites at our HQ in Banbury, Oxfordshire, ready for you to relocate in the event of an emergency.

As well as our in-depth technical knowledge and capabilities, we understand the business, legal and regulatory context that underpins your operations.

Covenco has delivered incident response and recovery services in the UK since 1998.