What is a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan & Why Do You Need It?

Do you know what connects DeepSeek, X, Bybit ETH cold wallet, New York University, GitHub Actions, Blockchain Gaming Platform WEMIX, and the Polish Space Agency? They've ALL been hit by cyber crime in the last three months.  

This highlights the fact that ANYONE can be the next victim of a security incident. Even the biggest organisations with top-notch cybersecurity can still be hacked.

Therefore, smaller organisations who may not have that scale of resources at their disposal might be easier targets for malicious actors. 

There’s no way to prevent attacks targeting your business. The only thing you can do is to have a proper strategy for responding to these attacks. So that when they do occur, so you can control the damage to your business operations, bottomline and your brand reputation.  

A Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan is the cornerstone of an effective cybersecurity response strategy. And if you don't have one already, you need to start building it today! 

What is a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan? 

A Cyber Incident Response Plan is a comprehensive guide that outlines the steps your business will follow in the event of a cyber attack. This essential document is designed to:

• Minimize Damage: Clearly defines the actions required to reduce the impact of the attack on your business operations and data.
• Protect Business Data: Ensures measures are taken to safeguard sensitive information from unauthorised access or theft. 
• Eliminate Poor Decisions: Prevents hasty or ill-informed choices during the chaos of a cyber incident. 
• Enhance Control: Significantly improves your ability to manage and mitigate the damage caused by malicious software or data breaches.

By preparing in advance, you ensure that:

• Decisions Are Made in a Calmer Environment: Thoughtful planning allows for strategic decision-making when not under pressure.
• Muscle Memory Activation: During a crisis, you can rely on the plan to guide your actions. It becomes second nature through practice and familiarity.

What is the Importance of a Cyber Incident Response Plan? 

Remember the adage, “If you fail to plan, then plan to fail”? The importance of the Cyber Incident Response Plan is pretty much encapsulated in that statement. 

If as a business you’re well-aware that sooner or later you could become the victim of a ransomware attack, a denial of service ddos attack etc. and yet you do nothing to plan for it, it’s plain reckless. 

A Cyber Incident Response Plan is important because it helps the business to: 

1. Identify the breach correctly. 
2. Contain the attack, control the damage and perhaps thwart the cyber criminals in their attempt to steal data.
3. Protect customer data and other sensitive information as far as possible.
4. Patch the vulnerabilities that allowed the attack to happen in the first place. 
5. Recover from the attack with minimal damage and/or regulatory implications.
6. Assess the lessons learned and implement them to enhance/improve the Cyber Incident Response Plan further. 

What Should a Cyber Incident Response Plan Include? 

A cyber incident response plan example should outline (amongst other things depending on the organisational context) the key steps your company will take in the event of a cyberattack. Your plan should include the following:

•     A description of your company's incident response team and their roles and responsibilities.
•     An overview of the company's incident response process.
•     The steps that will be taken to contain the attack and prevent it from spreading.
•     How information will be shared within the company and with external parties.
•     The procedures for restoring systems and data.
•     The contact information for key personnel.

To look professional, the Cyber Incident Response Plan should have a logical structure and be flawless in grammar and syntax. You can use our Cyber Incident Response Plan template as an example and if you need assistance in filling the cybersecurity incident response plan template out, you can use Top Writing Reviews, which offers writing assistance and can assist you in filling in the gaps.

Key Components of a Cyber Incident Response Plan

A well structured Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan should have the below components:

1. Preparation – Establish roles, responsibilities, and communication protocols; ensure tools and resources are in place.

2. Identification – Define how incidents are detected, documented, and reported.

3. Containment – Outline short-term and long-term strategies to isolate affected systems and prevent further damage.

4. Eradication – Detail steps to remove threats and eliminate root causes.

5. Recovery – Describe how to restore systems, validate functionality, and monitor for signs of reinfection.

6. Lessons Learned – Conduct post-incident reviews to identify gaps, update response procedures, and strengthen overall security posture.

These components ensure the incident response team can act swiftly and effectively, reducing the impact of cyber attacks and supporting business continuity.

How Do You Develop an Effective Incident Response Plan? 

Developing an effective Incident Response Plan (IRP) requires a strategic and structured approach tailored to your organisation's specific risks, resources, and regulatory requirements. The process should begin with a comprehensive risk assessment to identify your critical assets, common threat vectors, and existing vulnerabilities. This foundational understanding allows you to align your response plan with real-world scenarios most likely to affect your business. If your team needs assistance in creating a truly effective plan, consider our NCSC Assured Cyber Incident Planning and Response Training. 

Here are the key steps to develop a robust Incident Response Plan:

• Conduct a Risk and Impact Assessment: Understand the most likely threats and their potential impact on business operations.

• Define Roles and Responsibilities: Establish a cross-functional incident response team including IT, legal, HR, PR, and executive leadership. Define clear responsibilities for each phase of the response.

• Develop Detection and Reporting Mechanisms: Implement systems and protocols for identifying and reporting potential security incidents quickly and accurately.

• Create Response Procedures: Draft step-by-step actions for containment, eradication, and recovery for various incident types such as ransomware, phishing, or data breaches.

• Establish Internal and External Communication Plans: Determine how information will be shared within the organisation and with external stakeholders. These include regulators, the media and customers.

Once the plan is created, it should be regularly tested and refined through live drills. This ensures all team members are familiar with their roles and what's in the plan. These cyber attack scenario drills also ensure that the plan is continuously improved based on lessons learned and the evolving threat landscape. Read more on how to truly test your plan in the next section. 

How to Test a Cyber Incident Response Plan? 

Remember, we spoke of muscle memory earlier? Well, testing Incident Response Plans regularly helps to build that muscle memory. This ensures your organisational response during the attack is efficient and as accurate as possible. 

While it’s obvious to many that Incident Response Plans should be tested for efficacy, several businesses don’t understand exactly how to go about it. 

This is where attack simulations by way of Cyber Crisis Tabletop Exercises come into the picture. During these exercises, a highly seasoned cybersecurity expert creates a simulated attack scenario for the participants from your business. 

These participants should include key decision-makers during a cyber incident such as the IT and Incident Response teams, as well as business executives and board members. 

It involves simulating an attack on your system and seeing how your team responds. During this simulation, you get your team together and you respond to the hypothetical scenario based on the steps mentioned in your cyber incident response plans. 

Every important stakeholder in the incident response process understands their roles and responsibility better. They practise the incident response plan as well. Incident Response Tabletop Scenario Exercises are also a great method to identify any gaps in your plan and make sure that everyone is aware of what to do in the event of an attack.

But you must always make sure that the scenario you are rehearsing is deeply relevant to your organisation, its threat landscape and its specific structure. 

Conclusion

Every business must have a cyber incident response plan to operate successfully. It is a documented process that your organisation should follow in the event of a cyberattack. It  outlines the steps you will take to protect your data, minimise damage, and restore operations. Most importantly, this plan should be brief, fluff-free, to-the-point and easy for all to understand. 

In today’s digital world, it is more important than ever to have a thoroughly developed Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan in place. A cyber incident can have a devastating impact on your business that may cost you time, money, and customers. So, do not wait until it is too late. Get started on creating your cyber incident response plan today so that when the inevitable does happen, you can respond effectively and control the damage as far as is possible.