What Does An Incident Response Analyst Do?

WHAT DOES AN INCIDENT RESPONSE ANALYST DO?

Published: Aug 29, 2025 - The Incident Response Analyst develops and implements processes, procedures, and detection rules to identify and respond to cybersecurity incidents in the plant floor environment. This role involves conducting threat hunting, handling incident escalations, building and testing detection controls, and collaborating with Cybersecurity and Controls Engineering teams to strengthen detection and response capabilities. The analyst also supports tool development, participates in on-call rotations and industry engagement, and continuously advances knowledge of evolving best practices to enhance overall security posture.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Incident Response Analyst

1. Incident Response Analyst Key Accountabilities

Incident Response: Coordinate and triage responses to cybersecurity events and conduct forensic analysis.
Incident Management: Assist with managing the end-to-end incident response lifecycle.
Forensic Analysis: Perform host forensics, network forensics, log analysis, and malware analysis to support incident response investigations.
Remediation Planning: Develop and implement remediation plans in conjunction with incident response.
Stakeholder Reporting: Report investigation progress to various stakeholders.
Process Improvement: Contribute to internal activity and process reviews and identify opportunities for improvement.
Cybersecurity Knowledge: Stay current on industry cybersecurity practices, technologies, emerging threats, and vulnerabilities.
Digital Forensics: Conduct digital forensics investigations by preserving, collecting, and analyzing data in accordance with digital forensic standards for insider threats, fraud, and litigation cases.
Regulatory Compliance: Ensure compliance with legal and privacy regulations by collaborating with internal legal and privacy teams and providing digital forensics support.

2. Incident Response Analyst General Responsibilities

Incident Response Management: Oversee all incident response activities from detection through resolution.
Event Escalation: Serve as the primary contact point for suspicious and malicious events escalated from technical support cases and Managed Detection and Response Operations.
Forensic Analysis: Perform host- and network-level analysis to support ongoing investigations during incident response.
Malware Analysis: Review and analyze technical components of malware and related threat activities while developing and refining detection criteria.
Threat Intelligence: Review security events and data sources to improve detection capabilities and generate actionable threat intelligence.
Threat Hunting: Conduct threat hunting, computer network defense, and incident response activities.
Cyber Intelligence: Apply cyber intelligence effectively to strengthen security operations.
Network Investigation: Investigate networks and endpoints for malicious activity, including analysis of packet captures.
Attack Recovery: Lead and direct efforts to identify, confirm, contain, remediate, and recover from attacks.

3. Incident Response Analyst Role Purpose

Cybersecurity Operations: Support higher-level cybersecurity operations by responding to critical and high-volume incidents within the Incident Response team at Toyota.
Incident Coordination: Coordinate response efforts across multiple business units and provide timely updates.
Proactive Hunting: Perform proactive hunting exercises and develop a training curriculum for incoming IR Analysts, communicating results effectively to senior management.
Intrusion Analysis: Conduct intrusion scope and root cause analyses.
Remediation Strategies: Assist with intrusion remediation and the development and implementation of response strategies.
Incident Handling: Handle critical severity incidents in accordance with the operations runbook.
Case Review: Analyze escalations from Response Analysts and conduct case reviews.
Analyst Training: Provide onboarding training and coaching to lower-level IR Analysts.
Cyber Hunting: Conduct proactive cyber hunting exercises based on threat intelligence from Response Analysts.
Workflow Automation: Identify and develop workflow automations to reduce response times and eliminate lengthy procedures.
Executive Briefing: Interface with and provide briefings to senior management and C-level executives.

4. Incident Response Analyst Essential Functions

System Support: Assist in the analysis, design, testing, debugging, implementation, maintenance, integration, customization, and enhancement of existing or new systems.
Development Methodologies: Apply appropriate Agile or development methodologies, system development lifecycles, tools, and technologies.
DevOps Automation: Assist in automating the handoff of code releases from development to operations (DevOps).
Change Management: Participate in change management and service ticket management processes, including receiving tickets, monitoring resolutions, and ensuring customer satisfaction.
User Support: Ensure user satisfaction by providing preventative maintenance, troubleshooting, and timely resolution of complex problems.
Policy Compliance: Ensure application processes align with corporate social responsibility, security, compliance, environmental, and technical policies as well as applicable standards and legislation.
Service Monitoring: Ensure support teams meet defined metrics and monitor Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for supported systems.
Documentation: Take responsibility for documenting investigations.
Executive Reporting: Prepare executive summaries and conduct briefings on significant investigations.

5. Security Incident Response Analyst Additional Details

Security Monitoring: Monitor, analyze, and triage security events to maintain a strong security posture.
Incident Response: Provide incident response support when actionable security incidents are identified.
Security Tools: Evaluate and leverage security-focused products such as application security scanners, endpoint security, vulnerability management, and data loss prevention.
Vendor Assessments: Perform third-party security assessments for new and renewing vendors.
Customer Assessments: Collaborate with the business to complete customer security assessments and questionnaires.
Architecture Review: Conduct security architecture reviews to assess technical and business risks and recommend improvements to enhance the security posture.
Configuration Review: Work closely with IT teams to review configurations, hardening, and controls across diverse environments.
Vulnerability Awareness: Maintain strong knowledge of recent security vulnerabilities, attack vectors, attack methods, and remediation techniques.
Security Standards: Develop and implement security standards and best practices for the organization.

6. Incident Response Analyst Roles

Incident Response: Take ownership and manage cyber incident response end-to-end.
Team Collaboration: Work collaboratively with other IT security teams during investigations.
Threat Hunting: Self-initiate hunting initiatives to identify potential breaches or undiscovered cyber threats.
Threat Intelligence: Stay abreast of emerging threat patterns and provide recommendations to improve detection.
Patching Support: Assist with patching recommendations and workarounds for zero-day threats.
Remediation Coordination: Coordinate mitigation or remediation tasks with stakeholders and supporting teams.
Incident Communication: Communicate incident updates to management.
Workstation Forensics: Perform workstation forensics for investigations and compliance needs.
Documentation: Document analytical steps and findings from cybersecurity incident investigations.
IOC/TTP Review: Review IOCs and TTPs from threat campaigns and intelligence to determine if additional detective or protective measures should be implemented.
Resource Management: Identify when additional assistance or resources are required during an incident.
Root Cause Analysis: Participate in root cause analysis and lessons learned sessions.
Knowledge Sharing: Write technical articles for knowledge sharing.
Relationship Building: Establish and maintain strong working relationships with cybersecurity, infrastructure support teams, and business unit operation centers.

7. Cybersecurity Incident Response Analyst Tasks

Security Operations Support: Provide 24/7/365 support as part of a Security Operations organization for a leading federal healthcare client.
Event Monitoring: Monitor, triage, prioritize events, and respond to alerts for further investigation while ensuring thorough and detail-oriented work is completed promptly.
Incident Investigation: Investigate SIEM events, alerts, and tips to determine whether an incident has occurred.
Threat Intelligence Analysis: Analyze Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) reporting and Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) to strengthen network defenses and improve security measures.
Log Analysis: Interpret and analyze multiple log types, including Windows, Active Directory, Email, and VPN logs.
Incident Response: Coordinate responses for confirmed security incidents, including efforts to scope, contain, eradicate, and remediate threats.
Situational Awareness: Maintain situational awareness and stay current on cybersecurity news and adversary Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs).
Documentation: Document investigations and analysis using ticketing and incident reporting systems.
Reporting and Metrics: Support the production of situational awareness products by generating relevant metrics and visualizations for key constituents and leadership.
Operational Coverage: Work occasional weekends, holidays, and second or third shift assignments to maintain operational coverage.

8. Senior Incident Response Analyst Details and Accountabilities

Tier 3 Analysis: Perform tier three analysis by conducting host forensics, network forensics, log analysis, and malware triage in support of incident response investigations to determine root causes.
IOC Development: Recognize and codify attacker tools, tactics, and procedures into indicators of compromise (IOCs) applicable to current and future investigations.
Tool Development: Build scripts, tools, or methodologies to enhance incident investigation processes.
Reporting and Training: Develop and present comprehensive and accurate reports, training, and presentations for both technical and executive audiences.
Forensic Tools: Utilize tools such as EnCase, FTK, SIFT, Splunk, Redline, Volatility, Wireshark, TCPDump, and open-source forensic tools.
Cybersecurity Frameworks: Apply knowledge of end-to-end cybersecurity frameworks such as NIST CSF or others.
Technical Communication: Communicate technical details in clear and concise terms to senior management.
Regulatory Compliance: Ensure understanding and adherence to regulatory requirements such as the FTC, SEC, and other regulators for evidence management.

9. Incident Response Analyst Overview

Risk Management: Identify, govern, improve, track, and evaluate risks related to data protection to address organizational data protection pain points.
Privacy Protection: Establish and promote both process and technical systems for business privacy protection, ensuring risk convergence and the integration of privacy protection technologies into business scenarios.
Program Implementation: Implement the company’s privacy protection program for both overseas and domestic business operations.
Initiative Adoption: Promote and drive the adoption of the company’s privacy protection initiatives.
Automation Development: Advance the development of data security and privacy protection automation tools.
Regulatory Compliance: Track and benchmark domestic and international legal and regulatory requirements, and drive rectification processes to close data and privacy gaps.
PSIR Activities: Perform product security incident response (PSIR) activities, including information and cybersecurity incident management, vulnerability management, security monitoring, situational awareness, and cybersecurity knowledge management.
SOC Support: Support security operations center (SOC) functions by detecting incidents through monitoring events in networks and systems and handing over incident handling to the PSIR team (PSIRT).

10. CSSP Incident Response Analyst Job Description

SOP Documentation: Execute, draft, edit, and maintain SOP documentation.
Incident Response SOP: Maintain the Incident Response SOP in alignment with CSSP requirements.
Policy Compliance: Ensure documentation and capabilities remain compliant with CJCSM 6510.01B and other applicable policy directives.
Incident Reporting: Enter incidents into appropriate automated reporting systems.
Incident Coordination: Coordinate significant incidents with USCYBERCOM and supported entities to ensure proper analysis and timely, accurate reporting.
Forensic Capability: Develop and maintain a forensic capability to enhance response and investigation of significant network incidents, providing visibility into exploits, vulnerabilities, and TTPs used.
24x7 Support: Support the CSSP’s 24x7 Incident Response capability during non-core business hours in line with requirements.
Network Forensics: Provide network forensics support to the CSSP’s DCO Incident Response function.
Program Reviews: Participate in program reviews and onsite certification evaluations.
Incident Reporting: Develop Incident Summary Reports after incident closure to capture lessons learned.
Infrastructure Coordination: Coordinate with Infrastructure Support staff to meet CSSP requirements.

11. Cybersecurity Incident Response Analyst Functions

Alert Triage: Triage and investigate cybersecurity alerts raised by security tools, including SOAR, EDR, XDR, SIEM, Sandbox, Cloud Security, and Email Security.
Email Analysis: Analyze potential malicious emails and phishing attempts flagged by the email security solution or reported by employees.
Shift Operations: Report to the L1/L2 Cyber Detection and Response CSIRT Lead and operate within a 24/7 shift structure, including nights and weekends.
Incident Collaboration: Collaborate with CDR stakeholders throughout the six phases of a cybersecurity incident, including Preparation, Identification, Containment, Eradication, Recovery, and Lessons Learned.
Stakeholder Engagement: Engage with users and stakeholders to gather additional information supporting impact assessments of incidents.
Incident Escalation: Escalate incidents to higher tiers or according to playbooks and SOPs.
Threat Hunting: Perform IOC sweeps and proactive threat hunting.
Documentation Maintenance: Improve and maintain playbooks, SOPs, and other CSIRT documentation.
Analyst Support: Provide guidance and assistance to new analysts.
Efficiency Improvement: Enhance CSIRT efficiency by identifying opportunities for detection fine-tuning, automation, enrichment, and playbook improvements.

12. Incident Response Analyst Accountabilities

Threat Response: Triage and respond to cyber-based threats to Abbott and deploy countermeasures.
Security Tools: Leverage security technologies and tools such as SIEM, IDS/IPS, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), Network Security Monitoring (NSM), and Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) platforms to protect the enterprise.
Threat Hunting: Participate in threat hunting missions and remediate identified gaps.
Detection Development: Contribute to the development of detections using MITRE ATT&CK and defense actions through MITRE SHIELD.
Cross-Functional Coordination: Coordinate with cross-functional teams to achieve defined security goals and meet technical requirements in support of security project implementation plans.
Incident Assessment: Assess cybersecurity incidents to identify root causes, respond effectively, and recover the environment.
Situation Reporting: Compose and deliver Situation Reports to key stakeholders.
Metrics Development: Contribute to the development and refinement of cybersecurity metrics packages.
Threat Intelligence: Support the advancement of Abbott’s cyber threat intelligence by ensuring consistent detection, analysis, response, and monitoring of cybersecurity threats, including actors, campaigns, and vulnerabilities.

13. Security Operations and Incident Response Analyst Job Summary

Incident Management: Manage and respond to security incidents across the enterprise, production, on-premises infrastructure, and cloud-based environments.
Incident Lifecycle: Drive the full incident response lifecycle from detection to root cause analysis while acting as a subject matter expert and collaborating with business units to ensure effective resolution.
Forensic Investigation: Conduct forensic investigations to determine incident details and provide supporting evidence.
Threat Hunting: Perform proactive threat hunting activities to detect and mitigate new and emerging threats.
Detection Techniques: Develop advanced detection techniques and perform acquisition, analysis, and reporting on operating systems and applications.
Process Improvement: Assist in developing and improving incident handling processes, standard operating procedures, playbooks, runbooks, and automation workflows.
Engineering Collaboration: Collaborate with engineering teams to enhance detection and alerting mechanisms.
Security Tools: Work hands-on with a variety of security tools and technologies to strengthen the overall security posture.
Playbook Development: Create, maintain, and update incident response playbooks and procedures.
Tool Implementation: Assist in the development and implementation of tools across the security stack.
SOC Development: Contribute to shaping the future of the Security Operations team and SOC by driving process improvements and supporting core security functions.

14. Incident Response Analyst Responsibilities

Incident Response: Respond to cyber incidents and events within the designated domain while coordinating containment and mitigation of immediate and potential threats.
Threat Mitigation: Facilitate containment, mitigation, response, and recovery activities to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of networks and information systems.
Incident Analysis: Assess, analyze, and report on all relevant cyber incident response activities.
IT Collaboration: Collaborate with IT resources to analyze cyber incidents within network environments or enclaves.
Incident Tracking: Track and report on cyber incidents, events, and tasks.
Evidence Preservation: Preserve evidence integrity during investigations.
Vulnerability Recognition: Recognize and categorize types of vulnerabilities and associated attacks.
Network Security: Secure network communications to prevent compromise.
Malware Response: Identify, capture, contain, and report malware infections.
Malware Protection: Protect networks against malware using NIPS, anti-malware tools, external device restrictions, and spam filters.
SIEM Monitoring: Utilize security event correlation tools such as SIEM for monitoring and detection.
Cloud Strategies: Design incident response strategies tailored for cloud service models.
Damage Assessment: Perform damage assessments following incidents.
Intrusion Detection: Apply techniques for detecting host- and network-based intrusions using intrusion detection technologies.

15. Incident Response Analyst Details

Process Development: Develop and document processes and procedures for responding to plant floor cybersecurity incidents and train others on their use.
Detection Rules: Create detection rules using existing technology to identify cybersecurity incidents in the plant floor environment.
Threat Hunting: Develop methodologies for threat hunting in the plant floor environment.
Team Collaboration: Partner with Cyber Security and Controls Engineering teams to implement changes and tools that enhance incident detection capabilities.
Incident Escalation: Handle escalations of cybersecurity incidents in the plant floor environment.
Response Improvement: Collaborate with the detection and response team to improve overall incident detection and response capabilities.
Control Testing: Build and test detective controls.
Threat Hunting Activities: Participate in monthly threat hunting activities.
Tool Support: Assist with developing and supporting tools for detection and response.
On-Call Support: Provide on-call support once a month for escalations from CSIRT.
Professional Networking: Maintain and expand professional contacts within the cybersecurity peer community and with leading security consultants and vendors.
Continuous Learning: Continuously develop knowledge of evolving best practices through peer benchmarking, industry events, associations, and educational opportunities.
Solution Benchmarking: Leverage partnerships and relationships to benchmark existing and proposed cybersecurity solutions.

16. Senior Incident Response Analyst Duties

Readiness Planning: Ensure organizational readiness to respond to cyber incidents.
Process Development: Develop processes, procedures, and policies related to cyber incident response.
Incident Handling: Investigate, contain, and respond to cyber incidents.
Alert Escalation: Act as an escalation point for all detection alerts generated by third-party managed services.
Log Monitoring: Monitor and analyze security event logs and interpret reports.
Root Cause Analysis: Perform incident response investigations, containment, and root cause analysis across multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux/Unix, and Cloud Services.
Incident Investigation: Investigate, respond, escalate, and lead or participate in research, analysis, root cause identification, and resolution of security incidents.
Evidence Examination: Utilize tools to conduct investigations and examine evidence from endpoints, networks, and cloud environments.
Operational Procedures: Develop and refine security operational procedures, processes, and technical standards.
Process Improvement: Continuously improve incident response methods and countermeasures, and lead tabletop exercises.
Stakeholder Communication: Produce high-quality written and verbal communications, recommendations, and findings for stakeholders.
Team Collaboration: Collaborate with IT Security, Infrastructure, Application, and Service Delivery teams, as well as business partners, to implement response and remediation plans.
Reporting and Metrics: Provide reports and metrics on security operations, monitoring, and response activities.
Threat Awareness: Maintain awareness of current cybersecurity tools, trends, and the evolving threat landscape.

17. Information Security Incident Response Analyst Roles and Details

Incident Coordination: Coordinate with multi-functional teams to ensure timely and effective incident response in alignment with BD’s internal product security policies and procedures.
Stakeholder Communication: Serve as liaison between technical teams and business stakeholders to ensure clear and concise communication with management.
Incident Assignment: Assign unresolved incidents to appropriate resources to ensure proper advancement.
Incident Documentation: Document and log all Incident/Service Request details, allocating categorization and prioritization codes.
Status Updates: Keep partners informed of incident status at agreed intervals.
Record Association: Associate incidents with other records in the appropriate quality management system.
First-Line Investigation: Provide first-line investigation and diagnosis of all incidents and service requests.
Resolution Verification: Verify resolution with users and ensure appropriate parties resolve incidents.
Tabletop Exercises: Participate in or conduct tabletop exercises to identify potential process gaps.
Security Knowledge: Demonstrate security knowledge by staying current on threats, trends, and tools.
Priority Escalation: Advance high-priority incidents to the appropriate business leads.
SLA Management: Escalate incidents at risk of breaching Service Level Agreements.
Training and Exercises: Organize, conduct, and maintain documentation for internal information security tabletop exercises and training at various locations.
Communication Support: Draft internal and external communications under direction.
After-Hours Support: Participate in after-hours incidents, including international hours.

18. Incident Response Analyst Responsibilities and Key Tasks

Host Analysis: Perform analysis on hosts running across diverse platforms and operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, UNIX, Linux, embedded systems, and mainframes.
Threat Monitoring: Monitor open source channels such as vendor sites, Computer Emergency Response Teams, SANS Institute, and Security Focus to maintain awareness of the current Computer Network Defense (CND) threat condition and assess potential enterprise impact.
Log Analysis: Analyze log files from multiple sources, including host logs, network traffic logs, firewall logs, and intrusion detection system logs, to identify possible threats.
Incident Response Tools: Leverage tools such as Tanium, FireEye suite, GRR, Volatility, SIFT Workstation, MISP, and Bro to perform cyber incident response analysis.
Incident Tracking: Track and document CND hunts and incidents from initial detection through final resolution.
Artifact Collection: Collect intrusion artifacts such as source code, malware, and Trojans, and use discovered data to support mitigation of potential incidents within the enterprise.
Forensic Collection: Conduct a forensically sound collection of images and analyze them to determine mitigation or remediation actions on enterprise systems.
CND Hunts: Perform real-time CND hunts and incident handling, including forensic collections, intrusion correlation and tracking, threat analysis, and direct system remediation, in support of deployable Hunt and Incident Response Teams (IRTs).
Reporting: Write and publish CND guidance and reports, including engagement reports, to communicate incident findings to appropriate constituencies.
Alert Analysis: Receive and analyze network alerts from various enterprise sources and determine possible causes.
Data Analytics: Utilize data analytics tools such as Splunk to interpret machine data in support of responsibilities.
Vulnerability Correlation: Correlate incident data to identify vulnerabilities and provide recommendations for rapid remediation.

19. Cyber Threat Detection Response Analyst Duties and Roles

Team Leadership: Lead the professional delivery of the Threat Detection Engineering and Automation team.
Detection Engineering: Take ownership of the full detection-engineering lifecycle through research, testing, implementation, and tuning across SIEM and various host- and network-based security tools.
Purple Teaming: Conduct Purple Team exercises to ensure resilient and validated detections.
Automation Opportunities: Identify automation opportunities in threat detection and security posture reporting to improve efficiency.
Subject Matter Expertise: Act as a subject matter expert in threat detection, maintaining awareness of available and desirable data sources across monitored networks.
Threat Awareness: Develop and maintain credible knowledge of the latest threats, including APTs and common TTPs likely to affect the managed service.
SOC Support: Support Security Monitoring, Incident Response, and Service Management teams.
Process Documentation: Author and review Threat Detection Engineering processes, instructions, and SOC documentation.
SOC Development: Actively support the broader development of the SOC.
Mitigation Measures: Identify mitigation measures to prevent or limit the recurrence of security incidents.
Stakeholder Reporting: Produce threat-led proposals and reports for stakeholders to enhance detection capabilities through new data sources, modifications to existing sources, or advanced analytical techniques.
Threat Research: Contribute continuous research for inclusion in routine threat intelligence reporting and bespoke threat assessments.
Information Collection: Research new sources of information and develop collection and analysis capabilities to support the team.
Threat Communication: Remain aware of the political implications of developments among cyber threat groups and communicate these to relevant service lines.
Business Development: Support business development by conducting initial research and scoping for proposals.
Compliance Support: Assist customers in achieving compliance with standards such as GPG-13, NCSC Standards, and GDPR by providing evidence to support audits.

20. Incident Response Analyst Roles and Responsibilities

Event Monitoring: Prioritize and proactively monitor events for global infrastructure components and critical business applications.
Incident Management: Follow established processes and procedures to identify critical incidents, escalate them to appropriate support teams, and drive resolution.
Technical Facilitation: Facilitate technical conference bridges with guidance from the Duty Manager and support from local and regional IT Support teams.
Incident Communication: Communicate updates on critical incidents to a broad business and IT audience with the assistance of the Director on Call.
Process Improvement: Work independently and stay motivated to achieve goals related to process improvement, incident reduction through problem management, root cause analyses, and informed decision-making.
Application Onboarding: Collaborate with support teams to onboard additional applications and sites into the client process.
Process Innovation: Examine and interrogate work processes creatively and curiously to identify new solutions.
Security Monitoring: Monitor security appliances and provide advanced detection and response services through security event analysis and review.
Live Response: Perform live response data collection and analysis on hosts of interest during investigations.
Log Analysis: Correlate and analyze relevant events from host and network device log files.
Incident Response: Perform incident response and basic malware analysis to investigate incidents.
Compromise Assessment: Determine the scope of compromise, malware activity, and customer impact.
Knowledge Maintenance: Maintain up-to-date knowledge of tools and best practices in forensics and incident response, along with an understanding of advanced persistent threats, including attacker tools, techniques, and procedures.

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