Incident Response Policy

1. Purpose & Scope

Vexor maintains a structured, multi-tiered Incident Response (IR) program to ensure rapid identification, containment, and resolution of incidents that may affect:

• User data confidentiality, integrity, or availability
• Platform stability, performance, or continuity
• Internal systems, infrastructure, and cloud environments
• Trust & Safety events (e.g., CSAM, threats, large-scale abuse)
• Regulatory and compliance exposure under global laws

This policy applies to all employees, contractors, vendors, and systems used in the operation of Vexor products and services.

2. Incident Categories

Vexor classifies incidents by type and severity. Core categories include:

• Unauthorized Access: Compromised accounts, credential theft, unauthorized API access
• Data Breaches: Exposure, alteration, or unauthorized retrieval of user or system data
• Platform Abuse & Trust Violations: CSAM, threats, terrorism, or coordinated harmful activity
• Malware & Intrusions: Ransomware, trojans, remote code execution attempts
• Operational Failures: System outages, database corruption, cloud failures
• Insider Threats: Unauthorized data access or manipulation by internal personnel
• Vulnerability Exploitation: Active exploitation of bugs discovered in production
• Fraud & Financial Abuse: Monetization abuse, chargeback fraud, payout manipulation

3. Detection & Monitoring

Vexor employs continuous monitoring through:

• Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS)
• Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) dashboards
• Automated anomaly detection for login behavior, API usage, and network traffic
• Cloud provider security monitoring tools
• Trust & Safety risk detection (CSAM detection, threat models, spam trends)
• Internal employee access monitoring and audit logs

4. Incident Response Lifecycle

Vexor follows a structured 5-stage response lifecycle, modeled after NIST:

4.1 Identification

Detection teams triage alerts to validate suspected incidents, including:

• Security alerts and automated triggers
• Reports from employees, users, researchers, or third parties
• Anomalous traffic, logs, or behavioral signals

4.2 Containment

Immediate actions are taken to stop or slow the impact:

• Isolating compromised accounts or systems
• Temporary disabling of affected services or endpoints
• Blocking malicious IPs, devices, or sessions
• Activating emergency rate limits on APIs

4.3 Eradication

After containment, threat components are removed:

• Cleaning infected environments
• Revoking compromised credentials or tokens
• Applying patches, configuration changes, or firmware updates
• Removing malicious content or actors from the platform

4.4 Recovery

Systems are restored to stable operation:

• Restoring databases from trusted backups
• Re-enabling user services after validation
• Monitoring affected systems for post-incident anomalies
• Performing integrity verification of critical components

4.5 Lessons Learned (Post-Incident Review)

Following incident resolution, Vexor performs a full post-mortem evaluation:

• Root cause analysis (RCA)
• Timeline reconstruction
• Evaluation of process gaps or system weaknesses
• Policy and tooling updates
• Formal documentation for regulatory compliance

5. Evidence Preservation

For legal, regulatory, and internal investigation purposes, Vexor preserves:

• Logs, forensic images, and traffic captures
• Relevant user data per Data Retention Policies
• Moderator notes, system alerts, and timestamps
• Potential evidence for law enforcement collaboration

6. User Notification

If an incident exposes or risks exposure of personal data, Vexor will notify affected users:

• As soon as reasonably possible
• With clear information about the nature and impact of the breach
• With steps users may take to protect themselves
• With updates as new information becomes available

7. Regulatory Notification

In accordance with GDPR and global privacy regulations:

• Supervisory authorities are notified within 72 hours of confirmed data breaches
• Certain incidents require international regulatory reporting depending on jurisdiction
• All breach communications are coordinated through the Data Protection Officer (DPO)

8. Roles & Responsibilities

The Incident Response Team (IRT) includes:

• Security Operations (SecOps): Monitoring, detection, triage
• Incident Response Lead: Coordinates containment and remediation
• Infrastructure & DevOps: Restores services and environments
• Trust & Safety: Handles abuse, CSAM, threats, and user-related escalations
• Legal & Compliance: Manages regulatory reporting and law enforcement requests
• Communications: Prepares internal and external notifications
• DPO: Oversees GDPR-aligned data breach processes

9. Third-Party & Vendor Incidents

If a vendor or cloud provider experiences an incident affecting Vexor:

• Immediate coordination is initiated with the vendor
• Risk assessment is performed to determine impact
• Data breach obligations are evaluated and executed
• Corrective actions are validated before reactivation

10. Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Integration

Incident Response is integrated with Vexor’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery processes to ensure:

• Minimal downtime during major incidents
• Failover to redundant infrastructure when necessary
• Restoration of services from secure, encrypted backups

11. Training & Readiness

Vexor regularly performs:

• Red team & penetration testing engagements
• Incident response tabletop exercises
• Staff training on security best practices
• Simulated phishing and social engineering tests

12. Reporting Security Incidents

Users, researchers, and organizations may report suspected incidents through:

• Email (Security): security@vexor.to
• Emergency Response: emergency@vexor.to
• Incident Reporting Hotline: irt@vexor.to

13. Updates to This Policy

Vexor updates this Incident Response Policy to reflect:

• Evolving threat landscapes
• New technologies and detection capabilities
• Regulatory changes
• Lessons learned from audits or real incidents