Leveraging Crowdsourcing: A New Approach to Incident Response

How can crowdsourcing help cyberthreat incident response in the face of widespread automated execution and evolution of cyberattacks?
Main image for a Crowdsourcing Week article about using crowdsourcing to handle cyberthreat incident response

Written by Luna Bell

Several reasons explain the apparent increase in the number and complexity of digital threats that many companies face today. One significant factor is the mainstream adoption of LLMs and machine learning to automate the execution and evolution of cyberattacks. Yet, it’s not the only troubling one. Cybercriminals now embrace collaboration and knowledge sharing, letting them coordinate and execute colossal attacks with concerning efficiency. How can crowdsourcing help cyberthreat incident response?

We live in a time when a response plan relying solely on your own resources probably won’t be effective, especially if professional cybercriminals target your company. Thankfully, relief and a promising way forward come in the form of crowdsourcing. Read on to familiarize yourself with crowdsourcing in the context of incident response planning and learn how to leverage it safely.

What Is Crowdsourcing and Why Is It Beneficial for Incident Response?

It’s no secret that the vast majority of companies lack the experts needed to reach their cybersecurity goals, but crowdsourcing can help.  In the context of incident response, it involves delegating tasks for detecting, analyzing, and mitigating cyber threats to a larger community of cybersecurity professionals and enthusiasts. Together, they share their knowledge and collaborate to identify weaknesses, react to threats more effectively, and improve overall cybersecurity.

In fact, this approach provides benefits on multiple levels. It allows companies to automate, scale, and integrate crowdsourcing efforts with existing workflows and incident response planning.

A global talent pool improves the speed and accuracy of threat analysis. By leveraging crowdsourcing, individuals with unique skill sets and niche areas of expertise can uncover abnormal patterns and behaviors others might have missed. At the same time, multiple participants can come to the same conclusions, reducing the likelihood of false positives.

Usually, prestige and experience alone motivate many cybersecurity enthusiasts to apply their expertise in crowdsourcing. But even if you have to pay for managed crowdsourced threat intelligence, the solution is still far more cost-effective and less harmful to your business than dealing with the fallout of a ransomware attack or data breach.

How Can You Leverage Crowdsourcing for Cyberthreat Incident Response?

Cybersecurity experts and IT teams can employ various crowdsourcing methods to enhance their internal incident response efforts. Here are some of the most common ones you can implement to strengthen your company’s cybersecurity. 

Bug bounties and PTaaS

Bug bounties are among the oldest crowdsourced cybersecurity staples. Conducting one usually means outsourcing external cybersecurity enthusiasts to uncover and report previously unknown vulnerabilities and receive financial recognition. Similarly, Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) engages ethical hackers to conduct sanctioned attacks on your systems and assets, leading to the development of more robust cybersecurity defenses.

Vulnerability disclosure programs (VDPs)

VDPs are structured processes that researchers, website visitors, and others can use to voluntarily and discreetly submit vulnerabilities they have found in your infrastructure. While they offer no financial incentive, VDPs still attract vigilant participants and help identify vulnerabilities before they are exploited.

Open threat intelligence sharing

This is the practice of sharing information on cyber threat behaviors like indicators of compromise (IoCs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) with other organizations or as part of a threat intelligence network. The idea behind this practice is to make insights on the latest cyber threats available to all participants. That way, everyone benefits from faster identification and can collectively come up with more effective mitigation strategies.

What Precautions Should You Take?

While crowdsourcing to improve cyberthreat incident response offers many benefits, it’s important to remember that exposing internal systems to scrutiny and sharing data carries certain risks. Any effort must maintain data integrity and security while adhering to industry standards and regulations like HIPAA or the GDPR.

So, to ensure a smooth process, start by implementing trust mechanisms such as carefully vetting participants’ skills and credentials and requiring them to sign NDAs. It’s also smart to put anonymity assurances in place, like using email masking to obscure sensitive contact information to minimize spam and phishing risks.

A strict access control policy is essential to ensure participants handle only pre-approved data relevant to your crowdsourcing objectives. We’re sure there’s no need to explain what is a password manager or a zero-trust security model, but overlooking such practices is common. So, make sure to implement zero trust and role-based access controls, backed by secure, temporary credentials issued through a dependable password manager, to reduce the risk of data misuse significantly.

Lastly, always use secure communication and collaboration channels when discussing incident details and encrypt sensitive files before making them available.

Conclusion

A knowledgeable, motivated, and agile internal team should always be responsible for most of your incident response practices and mitigation efforts. However, crowdsourcing is an invaluable supplement that can help you fill knowledge gaps and pre-empt threats you were not even aware were possibilities. A balanced approach that bolsters internal expertise with outside assistance will ultimately produce the most versatile and effective incident response strategies.

That said, ensuring security is crucial. Vet participants carefully, have them sign NDAs, and implement a password manager and a zero-trust security model to maintain the highest level of protection while working with crowdsourcing.

Image for Crowdsourcing Week's event on crowdsourcing cyberthreat defences

Join our Live Roundtable on Crowdsourced Cybersecurity

Whether you are in innovation, automation, or on an entrepreneurship journey, don’t miss our “Unlocking the Power of Crowdsourced Cybersecurity” Crowd // Sessions event on February 27, 2025. It will inspire you with new ideas, insights, and skills to harness the massive opportunities in the future of cybersecurity. Register now to attend.

From our panel of global crowdsourcing and cybersecurity practitioners you will learn about:

  • Rapid Identification of Vulnerabilities
  • Being Proactively Defensive
  • Compliance and Regulation
  • and more

Register now to attend.

 

About Author

About Author

Luna Bell

Luna is a creative freelance writer who is an email marketing, digital marketing, and eCommerce expert. Also, Luna is a freelance guest post writer who aims to write useful and inspiring content. In her spare time, Luna enjoys reading about all things innovative and in the field of technology. She also enjoys playing tennis and doing yoga on the weekends. You can reach her at [email protected].

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