Lore & Order Vol. 12: What’s Your IR Baseline, Really?

Welcome to This Month’s Dispatch from Ally Security

Inside: A new NIST Assessment tool for charting your IR baseline, malware creeping through GitHub’s open-source halls, and tricksters bending AI agents to their will with poisoned prompts. Plus, an invite to a TTX Thursday you do not want to miss!

Table Talk: Establish Your Incident Response Baseline Using Ally’s New NIST Assessment

What’s the best method for getting an initial measurement of incident response maturity?

You could launch straight into a full tabletop exercise to establish your baseline, but for the uninitiated, that can feel like skipping the tutorial and charging straight into live combat. When the goal is simply to understand where IR posture currently stands, a full-scale scenario can be more overwhelming than illuminating.

For that reason, we crafted our NIST 800-61 r3 Assessment: a structured way to chart your current position, reveal hidden gaps, and map the road ahead. We’ve long relied on NIST as our go-to framework, serving as our north star for three reasons:

1. Shaped around the full IR lifecycle: Prepare, Detect, Respond, and Recover map cleanly to the six CSF 2.0 functions
2. Decision-centric at heart: Provides guidance on when to declare an incident, when to escalate, and how to balance business impact with security urgency
3. Recognized by stakeholders from across the realm: Serves as the de facto regulatory standard understood by auditors, insurers, legal counsel, and regulators alike, which is invaluable in the wake of a breach

This new tool transforms NIST guidelines into quantitative measurements, meaning TTX performance can be tied directly to preparedness benchmarks, and improvement can be tracked over time.

Click here to take the NIST Assessment for free, or venture to the Build Chronicle section down below to learn more.

You allies in IR,

Rob & Scout

Asa's Field Intel: Inspiration for Your Next TTX

1. The Record: California City Reports Ransomware Attack as LA Transit Agency Finds ‘Unauthorized Activity’

An order of evil sorcerers has been casting ransomware curses across Californian cities, seizing public services. Facilitators can wield this tale to test how governments respond when transportation, emergency response, and other critical systems are threatened. Open the note

2. Zenity: PleaseFix – The ClickFix of the Agentic Era

A cunning technique known as “PleaseFix” allows threat actors to bend AI agents to their will by providing poisoned prompts. This marks a new frontline for Facilitators, highlighting the need for security against ill-willed prompt injection. Reveal the strategy

3. Risky Business: GitHub Is Starting to Have a Real Malware Problem

Open-source armory GitHub is seeing a rise in malware-laced repositories, where tainted code waits for unsuspecting developers to pull it into their systems. Facilitators can convert this tale into a scenario where vetting third-party resources is paramount. Unravel the scroll

4. Reuters: US, Germany, Canada Disrupt Botnets That Infected Millions of Devices

The veil of a vast botnet has been cast down, revealing three million compromised devices used for DDoS attacks. This is prime inspiration for a scenario where hidden legions gather in silence, and defenders must prove they can uncover the threat before it's too late. Unseal the report

Ally's Build Chronicle: Introducing the Ally NIST Assessment!

Crafted by Megh and Stacey

This comprehensive evaluation was designed to establish a clear baseline of incident response posture, acting as your navigational instrument alongside the guidance of NIST 800-61 Rev 3. Mapped directly to CSF 2.0 functions, it transforms doctrine into measurable insight and helps you track progress on your journey.

Upon completing the NIST Assessment, you’ll receive a PDF report delivered directly to your inbox which includes:

• A clear summary of your current IR baseline
• A prioritized list of improvement areas aligned to NIST guidance
• Actionable recommendations to level up your IR posture

Before you look to the stars and begin charting your next IR quest, make sure you know exactly where your baseline stands.

End of Turn

We’ve examined how Ally’s NIST Assessment tool charts your IR baseline, dispelled ransomware curses disrupting cities on the west coast, and studied how botnet legions and AI trickery are shaping today’s threat landscape. Your kit is ready for your next quest.