Recovery Checklist for the First 72 Hours: Password Management

The Recovery Checklist

Most organizations still follow the old playbook: investigate first, reset later. That approach gives attackers more time to spread. The new model is reset-first containment, executed at scale, which stops lateral movement, preserves evidence, and buys you time to investigate.  

1. Contain Immediately: Reset at Scale

• Reset thousands of accounts across hybrid directories (on-prem AD, Entra ID, federated SSO). 

• Isolate privileged access by randomizing credentials for admin accounts, tokens, keys, and service principals. 

• Orchestrate service account resets via PAM tools and vault integrations. 

• Revoke all active sessions (cloud, VPN, SaaS, federated) to prevent attacker persistence. 

• Rotate vault-stored secrets. 

• Document the time, systems, and scope of all reset and revocation actions for audit/regulatory traceability. 
  
  

2. Prove Containment

• Verify synchronization across all identity stores (AD, Entra ID, Okta/Ping, Google Workspace). 

• Review and reset API tokens, OAuth grants, and cloud IAM keys (AWS IAM, Azure SPNs, GCP service accounts). 

• Confirm no orphaned, inactive, or “back door” accounts remain. 

• Validate audit logs are intact and not tampered with. 
  
  

3. Begin Root-Cause Investigation

• Preserve forensic evidence before deeper remediation. 

• Review authentication and access logs for anomalies. 

• Correlate attacker activity with reset timestamps and privileged access changes. 

• Conduct targeted review of high-value accounts (executives, finance, admins) during the breach window. 

• Enrich with threat intelligence — check if stolen credentials appear in dumps or align with known campaigns. 

• Place accounts, logs, and artifacts under legal hold. 
  
  

4. Align and Communicate

• Notify SOC, IAM, and executive stakeholders of containment status. 

• Define next steps for forensics, legal, compliance, and privacy teams. 

• Prepare initial executive brief aligned to regulatory and contractual reporting obligations. 

• Draft and review consistent external messaging for regulators, customers, and partners. 

• Engage the comms team to unify legal, technical, and business narratives. 
  
  

5. Monitor for Persistence

• Watch for repeated credential abuse attempts and suspicious resets. 

• Track abnormal MFA behavior (push fatigue, new device enrollments). 

• Increase monitoring on critical systems, especially those tied to compromised accounts. 

• Use UEBA/SIEM to detect behavioral anomalies (lateral movement, privilege escalation, unusual logon times). 

• Elevate EDR/XDR monitoring on endpoints tied to affected accounts. 

• Monitor dark web chatter for enterprise credential leaks. 
  
  

6. Transition to Recovery

• Begin phased restoration once containment is confirmed. 

• Patch vulnerabilities exploited in the breach. 

• Update incident documentation for SOX, HIPAA, PCI, GDPR, or other compliance obligations. 

• Review after-action findings and feed into tabletop exercises and playbook updates. 

• Implement critical posture improvements: phishing-resistant MFA, passwordless adoption, better password policies, vaulting tools, device posture checks and more. 
• Document readiness gaps and automation needs discovered during the response. 
  
  

Password management has always been about access. But in a recovery scenario, access alone isn’t enough. As SolarWinds made clear, speed and containment matter more than convenience. That’s where recovery-ready password management comes in — fast resets at scale, visibility for investigators, and controls that shut down attacker leverage before it grows. If you’d like to see what that looks like in practice, let’s talk.