For establishing incident handling procedures, which publication should an incident responder reference?

The correct reference for establishing incident handling procedures is NIST 800-61. This document, titled "Computer Security Incident Handling Guide," provides comprehensive guidelines for managing and responding to cybersecurity incidents effectively. It outlines key processes that include preparation, detection and analysis, containment, eradication, and recovery, along with post-incident activities.

By using NIST 800-61, incident responders can ensure that they are following established best practices and frameworks to address and manage incidents in a structured manner. Furthermore, this publication emphasizes the importance of having a well-defined incident response team, planning, and continual improvement, which are crucial for maintaining robust incident response capabilities in any organization.

The other publications mentioned, while relevant to different areas of cybersecurity and governance, do not focus specifically on incident handling procedures. For instance, NIST 800-53 is concerned with security and privacy controls for federal information systems, ISO standard 15408 pertains to evaluation criteria for IT security, and COBIT is a framework for developing, implementing, monitoring, and improving IT governance and management practices. Thus, they do not provide the targeted guidance needed for incident response that NIST 800-61 does.