Glossary
Incident Response
Incident response is your game plan for when something goes wrong. It's like a fire drill - you don't wait until there's an actual fire to figure out how to evacuate. You plan ahead, practice, and when an emergency happens, everyone knows their role and what to do.
What is Incident Response?
Incident response is the organized approach to addressing and managing a security breach or cyberattack. It includes preparation, detection, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned. A good incident response plan minimizes damage and recovery time.
Why Should You Care?
How you respond in the first hours of a breach dramatically affects the outcome. Companies with incident response plans and teams save an average of $2.66 million per breach compared to those without. Having a plan means faster containment, less damage, and quicker recovery.
Is your business exposed?
Real-World Example
Two similar-sized companies were hit by the same ransomware. Company A had an incident response plan - they isolated systems within 20 minutes, called their incident response team, and recovered from backups in 48 hours. Company B scrambled for 3 days before even understanding what happened, ultimately paying $500,000 ransom and still losing 2 weeks of data.
How to Protect Against Incident Response
- 1.
Create a basic incident response plan document
- 2.
Define who to contact: IT, legal, insurance, PR, law enforcement
- 3.
Keep contact information accessible offline (printed)
- 4.
Know how to isolate systems from the network quickly
- 5.
Practice your plan with a tabletop exercise annually
- 6.
Have a cyber insurance policy that includes incident response support
Related Terms
Is your business exposed?
Check if your company data is circulating on the dark web
Free scan • No credit card required