Building an Incident Response Checklist for MSP Technicians

Responding to security incidents in IT environments should be fast, consistent, and scalable. A standardized incident response checklist is necessary to achieve this, especially for MSPs (Managed Service Providers) supporting multiple tenants. Having one will ensure every technician follows the same process, whether handling malware infections, credential compromise, or data leaks.

This guide walks you through the entire IT security incident response (IR) cycle, which is based on the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) framework. There are five steps: Preparation, Detection and Analysis, Containment, Eradication and Recovery, and Post-incident Activities.

Each section will include actionable steps using tools like PowerShell, Command Prompt, Group Policy, and the Windows Registry. This checklist applies to all MSPs and IT environments of all sizes.

Steps to creating an incident response checklist for MSP technicians

Before implementing a cyber incident response checklist, technicians must have the appropriate permissions, tools, and telemetry.

📌 Prerequisites:

• Technicians need to have administrator access to all affected endpoints, servers, or domain controllers involved in the incident.
• You’ll be required to have access to tools like PowerShell 5.1 or later, Event Viewer, Registry Editor, and Windows Security Logs.
• You need to be able to log and audit logs. These include Microsoft 365 audit logs, Windows Security, firewall, and local event logs.
• You need access to the Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center for alert review, auditing, and mailbox investigations if applicable.
• A centralized alerting or monitoring system like NinjaOne, Microsoft Defender, or Azure Sentinel would be best for increased anomaly monitoring and better incident workflows.

📌 List of steps for building an incident response checklist:

Step 1: Preparation phase – readiness and configuration

This phase will tune and prepare your environment for a security incident. For this step to succeed, you will need to enable detailed auditing, verify time synchronization, and confirm what the tools and logs can provide.

📌 Use Cases:

• This will help you and your team establish a baseline security posture across all client environments.
• Ensure all endpoints and domain controllers can make and audit logs before an incident occurs.
• Help meet compliance requirements and improve forensic visibility post-incident.

📌 Prerequisites:

• You need to have access to the Group Policy Management Console or local Group Policy Editor.
• You need to have elevated permissions to run PowerShell or the Command Prompt as an administrator.
• All devices have to be domain-joined to apply group-based settings.

Follow these steps to configure audit logging and system readiness:

Security issues

1. First, enable auditing policies using Group Policy. Open it and navigate to: Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Advanced Audit Policy Configuration.
2. Next, set the following audit categories according to your organization’s preferred security standards:
   • Logon events
   • Account logon
   • Object access
   • Account management
3. Verify the auditing settings via PowerShell using this command:

AuditPol /get /category:*

4. To check time synchronization across all endpoints, utilize this command:

w32tm /query /status

Non-security issues

Preparation also means planning for non-security problems, including hardware failures and service outages.

Ensure the following:

• Monitoring and alerting are configured for service uptime.
• Finalize documentation escalation paths for outages.
• Confirm backups or spare hardware are available if systems fail.

Step 2: Detection and analysis

This phase involves identifying indicators of system compromise. In addition, you will also review system and security logs and pinpoint suspicious activity across endpoints or accounts.

📌 Use Cases:

• This step will help you detect unauthorized access, policy violations, and malware execution across managed environments.
• Here, you will investigate anomalies reported by security tools, SIEM platforms, or help desk tickets.
• You will also review compliance requirements by reviewing audit trails and security events.

📌 Prerequisites:

• You will need access to tools like Event Viewer, Windows Security logs, or a SIEM platform to detect threats effectively.
• You need to have admin access to endpoints or centralized log collection tools.

Follow these steps to implement an effective detection and threat analysis strategy:

Security events

1. First, review security logs for key event IDs:
   • 4624: Successful login
   • 4625: Failed login
   • 4688: New process creation
   • 1102: Audit log cleared
   • 4720: New user created
   • 4728–4732: Group membership changes
     

2. Use this PowerShell command for event log collection:

Get-WinEvent -LogName Security | Where-Object {$_.Id -eq 4625}

3. To check for persistence mechanisms, navigate to this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

4. To check for suspicious scheduled tasks, use this PowerShell command:

Get-ScheduledTask | Where-Object {$_.TaskPath -like ‘*mal*’}

Non-security events

Detection also applies to non-security events. Instead of suspicious processes or anomalies, technicians may see signs like performance drops, servers disconnecting, or backup jobs failing. In such cases, the goal is the same: collect evidence from monitoring tools, alerts, and logs to confirm the event and understand its scope.

For example, you can use this PowerShell code to determine if server status is up or otherwise:

Test-Connection server01 -Count 1 -Quiet
Get-Service -ComputerName server01 | Where-Object Status -ne ‘Running’
Test-NetConnection server01 -Port 3389

Step 3: Containment procedures

Once you and your team have confirmed a threat, the next step in this IT security incident response checklist is to isolate affected systems and prevent further damage. The tasks involve disabling accounts, isolating endpoints, and halting malicious processes.

📌 Use Cases:

• These steps will help you stop the spread of malware, ransomware, and unauthorized activity across the network.
• Isolate compromised systems from critical infrastructure, preventing the spread of possible infection.
• This will let you block user access during account compromise investigations.

📌 Prerequisites:

• You will need access to affected devices via an RMM tool, PowerShell Remoting, or direct login.
• Administrative permissions are necessary on Endpoints or through Active Directory.
• Policies should be in place for incident escalation and containment scope.

Follow these steps to isolate or contain threats:

Security containment steps

1. Isolate the device from the network. You can use this PowerShell command if you’re not using NinjaOne or other RMM software:

Disable-NetAdapter -Name “Ethernet” -Confirm:$false

2. To block user sign-in or compromised accounts (for Microsoft 365 users), use this PowerShell command:

Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName [email protected] -BlockCredential $true

3. Quarantine or tag compromised endpoints.
   • You can use your RMM tool (like NinjaOne) to move affected systems into a containment group to isolate them.
   • Another option is to move the device to a restricted Active Directory Organization unit that applies network isolation via GPO.
4. Next, you can terminate malicious processes by using this PowerShell command:

Stop-Process -Name “suspiciousprocess” -Force

Replace “suspiciousprocess” with the name of the malicious process you detected using Step 2 (Event ID 4688). You can identify malicious processes by checking their directories. For example, if it is saved in Temp (e.g, C:\Users\Public\Temp\svchost.exe), then it warrants suspicion and termination.

5. After this, you can then identify the malicious threats on the Registry. You can get it done using this PowerShell command:

Get-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\Software\
Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run”

Review the PowerShell output. Look for sketchy, misspelled, out-of-place names and files from non-standard locations. For example, if there are .exe files with unknown names that should not be there, this is cause for suspicion.

6. End the process by removing malicious startup entries from the Windows Registry. Use this command:

Remove-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Run” -Name “BadApp”

Replace “Badapp” with the name of the malicious startup entry detected.

7. Reboot or restart Explorer so the changes will take effect. Use this PowerShell code:

Stop-Process -Name explorer -Force
Start-Process explorer

⚠️ Warning: Do not delete malicious entries unless you have verified that it is malicious or harmful.

Non-security issues: containment steps

For non-security incidents, containment involves taking faulty hardware offline, reverting to a previous update, or restoring from failed backups. You can use your RMM monitoring tool to flag these anomalies and start fixing these disruptions.

Step 4: Eradication and recovery

After you’ve contained the threat, the next step is to remove the threat from the environment and restore affected systems.

📌 Use Cases:

• This step and the methods below will help you and your team remove malware, backdoor access, and unauthorized tools from compromised systems.
• Reset user credentials and reapply security policies after the breach.
• This method will help you fix and restore affected computers to operational status.
• This will let you validate system integrity before integrating devices back into production.

📌 Prerequisites:

• You will need access to antivirus or endpoint protection tools like Microsoft Defender.
• You’ll need increased system permissions to run scans, remove malicious software, and reset policies.
• You will need access to Active Directory or identity management tools to reset your credentials.

To eradicate and help your system recover, here’s what you need to do:

Security issues

1. Open PowerShell and run full malware/antivirus scans using this command:

Start-MpScan -ScanType FullScan

2. To reset credentials, run this on PowerShell:

Set-ADAccountPassword -Identity “compromisedUser” -Reset
-NewPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText “NewP@ssw0rd123” -Force)

Replace “compromisedUser” with the username and “NewP@ssw0rd123” with your desired secure password.

3. To inspect the registry for altered or suspicious devices, run this command:

Get-ItemProperty -Path
“HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services”

Here, you must search for abnormal names, altered paths, and entries that show unknown EXE files.

4. To review and audit inbound firewalls and ensure they’re aligned with your policies, use this command:

Get-NetFirewallRule | Where-Object
{$_.Direction -eq “Inbound” -and $_.Action -eq “Allow”}

5. Use this PowerShell command to GPO baselines and refresh local policies:

gpupdate /force

6. Optional: You can roll back the system to a restore point with this command:

Restore-Computer -RestorePoint 1

Non-security/operational issues

In these incidents, recovery includes restoring systems from backups, rolling back problematic patches, or replacing failed devices.

Step 5: Post-incident activities

After the threat is contained and the system has been restored, the final step involves documentation, analysis, and improvements. Performing these steps will prevent recurrence and help demonstrate diligence to stakeholders and clients.

📌 Use Cases:

• This step will let you and your team document the timeline of events, recap the actions taken, and document the remediation outcomes, which will be useful for future threats.
  This will help IT teams point to the root cause of the incident and how it spread, preventing such occurrences in the future.
• You and your team can identify policy or configuration gaps and update cyber incident response checklists and procedures.
• You will be able to reinforce access controls, password policies, or audit settings based on your findings.

📌 Prerequisites:

• You will need access to security reports, event logs, and RMM data from the earlier incident report phases.
• This requires the ability to export logs from affected systems.

To wrap the incident up and create resources for future use, follow these steps:

1. Document the timeline of events and the actions your team has taken. Be sure to include detection time, containment measures, affected systems, and when and how the incident was resolved.
2. Collect and preserve evidence, like security logs. You can export them using this line on the Command Prompt:

wevtutil epl Security “C:\IR\SecurityLog.evtx”

3. Every security response checklist needs a root cause analysis (RCA). Review how the incident started, how it was detected, and what allowed it to spread. This will help you and your team address potential loopholes and reduce the spread of potential threats in the future.

4. You can audit local privileges. Look for unexpected user accounts or service accounts with elevated rights:

Get-LocalGroupMember -Group “Administrators”

5. It is also necessary to reinforce password policies for all users and strengthen access controls. You can approach this task by requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA). Sometimes, a password may not be enough; an authenticator app and other additional layers of IT security protection will help.
6. Finally, update your  MSP incident response checklist and standard operating procedures. Note what worked, what failed, and the factors that need improvement. Be sure to note issues that were caused by missed alerts or actions that may have failed.

⚠️ Things to look out for

Incident response checklist template for IT technicians

Modify this template depending on the needs of your client or organization.

How NinjaOne supports rapid and automated IT incident response

NinjaOne provides MSPs with the tools they need to automate, accelerate, and make IT incident responses uniform across managed environments. It gets it done by integrating monitoring, scripting, and documentation into a single platform. With it, technicians can respond to security events quickly and consistently.

Some of its functions that can help fulfill the steps detailed in your incident response checklist include the following:

• NinjaOne has integrated remote monitoring tools, helping you detect and be alerted to anomalies in real time.
• You can disable network adapters and tag infected devices for isolation using remote containment.
• Automation of critical tasks like resetting credentials, scanning malware, and terminating malicious processes using custom scripts and prebuilt actions.
• NinjaOne has a robust script library function that lets you deploy PowerShell scripts to fix compromised registry entries.
• You can generate audit documentation, including incident logs and technician actions for post-incident review.
• NinjaOne provides centralized documentation and standard operating procedure deployment, enabling incident report checklists and task flows to be shared with technician teams.

NinjaOne can help MSPs reduce response times and uniformly handle incidents while maintaining full visibility and control across client environments.

Create an incident response checklist to enhance your IT environment’s security

Having an incident response checklist will ensure that every technician on your team responds effectively and consistently to cyber incident threats. You can combine detection tools, policy enforcement, automation, and post-incident documentation to safeguard clients while maintaining trust and operational excellence.

Prepare, detect the threats, contain and eradicate them, restore your system, and create the appropriate documentation to improve your SOPs.

Related topics:

• IT Security Checklist to Protect Your Business
• MSP Cybersecurity Checklist 2025: Protect Against Ransomware & Threats
• Endpoint Hardening Checklist
• Complete Guide to Systems Hardening [Checklist]
• Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) Compliance Checklist
• MSPs: 6 Keys to Surviving a Ransomware Outbreak Across Your Client Base