kevinschmidlin

the age of reliance

In most organisations, incident response chatter lives in the same tools used for daily collaboration, Teams chats, email threads, and ticket updates. But what happens when adversaries tune in? Sophisticated threat actors can infiltrate these primary channels, silently joining calls, auto-forwarding sensitive emails or monitoring JIRA tickets. Suddenly, your well-planned response is unfolding on an open mic.

to oob, or not to oob?

Out-of-Band (OOB) communications are purpose-built channels, separate from your everyday platforms that ensure your incident chatter never leaves a secure environment. Think encrypted messaging services, email services, or isolated collaboration tools. The goal? Make sure that, when threat actors crash your party, you’ve already moved the conversation to a safe room. Next-gen adversaries are operational-security savvy: they infiltrate calls, exploit primary channels, and set up forwarding rules to siphon intel.

cultivating your oob ecosystem

An OOB solution isn’t “set and forget,” as a wise man once told me, it needs constant watering and feeding. Shout out to Zane for that gem, it still holds true to this day. In my experience, when an OOB channel goes untouched for months, teams begin to lose muscle memory: login credentials get buried, the activation process gets hazy, and when an incident occurs you end up rushing to reset passwords. I once watched in real time as an incident controller could not recall the secondary workspace’s address or authentication flow, which forced us to scramble back into a communication channel we already knew was compromised for precious minutes.

Now, this may have been a simulation, but regular exercises, credential rotation, and periodic sanity checks are the lifeblood of a resilient OOB ecosystem.

a proven blueprint

Many teams champion an on-demand OOB suite—secure messaging plus a locked-down collaboration environment. For example, pairing Signal for encrypted chats with a secondary workspace for file sharing. By keeping the workspace dormant until an incident reaches a predefined severity threshold, you strike the balance between security and agility—tools are ready when needed, but invisible during normal operations.

mapping the workflow

1. Incident triggers → primary channels triage
2. Activation decision → Incident Controller greenlights OOB
3. Spin up OOB suite → Signal groups + secondary Workspace
4. Secure comms → chats, calls, file exchanges, audits
5. Demobilise → deactivate Workspace once all clear

lessons learned

• Plan your fall-back early, not when smoke’s in the air.
• Gate OOB resources by default—activate on demand.
• Cultivate your channels: run regular drills, rotate credentials, and sanity-check log-ins.
• Document every transfer: chats as evidence, files hashed.
• Train hands-on: tools only shine when people know where to click.

closing thoughts

OOB communications aren’t a “nice to have,” they’re essential. By decoupling your incident chatter from everyday traffic, you deny adversaries their easiest entry point. With robust processes, familiar UIs and regular upkeep, incident response teams can flip the switch to a resilient, out-of-band posture in minutes. Remember: when the next breach hits, the right action is the easiest action, and your playbooks should carry you, even when primary channels fail.