containing-active-breach

Containing Active Breaches

When to Use

• A confirmed intrusion is in progress with an active adversary on the network
• Malware is spreading laterally across endpoints or servers
• A compromised account is being used for unauthorized access to systems
• Ransomware encryption has been detected and is actively propagating
• An attacker has established command-and-control communications from internal hosts

Do not use for post-incident cleanup when the adversary is no longer active; use eradication procedures instead.

Prerequisites

• Confirmed incident classification with P1 or P2 severity from triage
• EDR console access with host isolation capabilities (CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, SentinelOne)
• Network firewall and switch management access for segmentation
• Active Directory or identity provider administrative access for credential actions
• Pre-approved containment authority documented in the incident response plan
• Evidence preservation plan to avoid destroying forensic artifacts during containment

Workflow

Step 1: Assess Containment Scope

Before taking containment actions, map the full scope of compromise to avoid partial containment that alerts the adversary:

• Identify all confirmed compromised hosts via EDR telemetry and SIEM correlation
• Map lateral movement paths using authentication logs (Windows Event ID 4624 Type 3 and Type 10)
• Identify all compromised credentials (check for pass-the-hash, Kerberoasting, DCSync activity)
• Determine C2 channels (beacon intervals, domains, IPs, protocols)
• Assess whether the adversary has domain admin or equivalent privileges

Containment Scope Assessment:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Compromised Hosts:     5 (WKSTN-042, WKSTN-087, SRV-FILE01, SRV-DC02, WKSTN-103)
Compromised Accounts:  3 (jsmith, svc-backup, admin-tier0)
C2 Channels:           HTTPS beacon to 185.220.x.x every 60s ± 15% jitter
Lateral Movement:      PsExec via svc-backup, RDP via admin-tier0
Adversary Privilege:   Domain Admin (admin-tier0 compromised)
Data at Risk:          Finance share (\\SRV-FILE01\finance$) accessed