
Imagine someone withdrew money from a company's account at night. The next morning panic breaks out, leading to yet more problems. The IT department can reinstall a compromised system from scratch or restore it from backup. Reinstalling from scratch will wipe out all traces left by the attackers, and external investigators will have to search for clues in other systems. Restoring from backup carries the risk of accidentally reinstating a compromised image. In this paper, we will describe common mistakes that experts make when responding to security incidents.