What is the primary purpose of containment in incident response?

The primary purpose of containment in incident response is to limit exposure after an incident. When a cybersecurity incident occurs, such as a data breach or a malware infection, the immediate goal is to contain the situation to prevent further damage and to stop the spread of the incident within the network or to other systems.

Containment strategies can include isolating affected systems, disabling network access, or deploying security measures such as firewalls to restrict traffic. By effectively containing the incident, organizations can mitigate the impact on their operations, protect sensitive data, and lay the groundwork for recovery and remediation efforts.

Identification of new vulnerabilities, analysis of threat potential, and generating response plans are all important components of cybersecurity and incident response, but they occur either before an incident or in a later phase of incident management. Containment specifically focuses on managing the immediate threat once it has been detected to ensure that the situation does not escalate further.