LogRhythm Incident Response and Platform Expertise Saved Retailer Thousands

LogRhythm IR and Platform Expertise Saved Retailer Thousands

A large retail company suspected a data breach had occurred that resulted in credit card numbers being exfiltrated by unknown attackers. Due to Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance, the company’s security team and external Payment Card Industry Forensic Investigator (PFI) firm snapped into action.

Large Retail Organization Case Study (US)
Large Retail Organization Case Study (UK)

The Challenge

Investigating a Possible Data Breach Involving Credit Card Data

Because PFI firms are always external to the organization’s security team, they rarely have deep expertise in any specific platform like LogRhythm. In this case, the PFI firm’s solution to a lack of strong LogRhythm expertise was to export all data from the SIEM and then import the SIEM data into tools more familiar to them. The PFI firm’s proposed solution would have been time-consuming and delayed the investigation by days. The retailer suggested a workaround to fill in the knowledge gap for the PFI firm in order to conduct a faster overall investigation.

The Solution

Empowering Effective Incident Response with Forensic Co-Pilot Services

The retail organization brought in LogRhythm’s Forensic Co-Pilot Services team to assist the PFI firm. LogRhythm’s Forensic Co-Pilot Services team trained the PFI team on using LogRhythm to search in active log data as well as retrieve event data from backup storage; thus eliminating unnecessary export and import processes the PFI firm previously proposed.

The Forensic Co-Pilot Services team guided the investigators on the most efficient way to design their investigative queries, by writing SecondLook searches and optimizing the platform to perform those searches. Additionally, the LogRhythm team designed file integrity monitoring (FIM) rules to monitor critical files, including monitoring for files containing exported credit card data.

Finding Value

LogRhythm Forensic Co-Pilot Services Saved the Retailer Thousands in PFI Firm Fees

The retailer avoided several days of PFI fees using LogRhythm’s Forensic Co-Pilot Services that increases visibility into the possible data breach and reduces the overall investigation timeframe. Since PFI firms utilize hundreds of different security tools to perform their investigations, they are not well versed in incident response on all security tools or SIEM platforms. LogRhythm’s Forensic Co-Pilot Services more than paid for itself in this engagement in costing thousands of dollars less than the added billable hours the PFI firm wanted to take because they lacked LogRhythm platform expertise for incident response. Ultimately, the retailer was able to meet their PCI compliance requirements, as well as remediate the threat from their network.

Forensic Co-Pilot services’ augments your staff or a mandated firm’s staff with incident response-specific platform expertise to provide faster response to concerning security incidents.

About PCI Compliance

Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance applies to any entity worldwide that stores, processes or transmits credit cardholder’s data. If there is a breach or a suspected breach of cardholder data, the credit card company most likely will require an independent forensic investigation to be completed by an external PCI-listed payment card industry forensic investigator (PFI).

What should an organization with a possible breach do?

It is critical that the victimized organization contact their PFI and start collecting/preserving forensic evidence immediately once the possible breach is detected. The organization’s internal security team is not allowed to start the investigation. Instead, they must work to preserve and make all data available for the PFI firm. The organization with the possible breach must engage effectively with the external PFI firm and pay for the investigation.

How much does the victimized organization pay for the PFI firm?

Depending on the scope of the breach, the timeline for remediation and cost varies on a case-by-case basis. PFI’s rate per day ranges from $13,000–$30,000.

What is the PFI firm’s role in the data breach investigation?

To complete a thorough and effective investigation, the PFI will require access to data, facilities, and people. They will also need to complete a checklist similar to the one found in the Best Practices for Victim Response and Reporting Cyber Incidents publishing by the Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Cyber Security Unit. The PFI’s task is to make a high-level assessment as to whether the organization was compliant with each of the 12 PCI DSS requirements at the time of the breach. The PFI doesn’t attempt to validate compliance (a positive), but rather looks for non-compliance.