I LOVE incident response. I love the challenge of detecting an incident, finding out what happened during the incident, how the incident occurred, how to fix things, and everything else associated with incident response. I love the challenge of going against the attackers and working to stop the attack. I also love that there is always something new to learn or ways to improve.
An issue I’ve encountered throughout my career is clients who do not have a documented incident response plan. Not having a plan can cause tension, confusion, and other problems during a security incident. To try and help these companies, I wanted to share a list of 10 reasons why a company should have a cyber incident response plan:
1. Threat Landscape: Cyber threats are continually evolving and growing in sophistication. An incident response plan helps to anticipate these threats and provide a course of action to counter them (Ponemon Institute, 2020).
2. Minimize Damage: Rapid and well-coordinated responses to a security incident can limit damage and reduce recovery time and costs (Cisco, 2018).
3. Regulatory Compliance: Various laws, regulations, and industry standards require organizations to have a formal incident response plan to protect sensitive data, such as GDPR in Europe or HIPAA in the healthcare sector (Cisco, 2018).
4. Maintain Trust: Having a formalized response plan helps maintain the trust of customers and stakeholders, as it demonstrates preparedness and commitment to safeguarding their data (IBM, 2020).
5. Reputation Management: A swift and effective response can limit the reputational damage from a security incident (Cisco, 2018).
6. Cost Savings: A breach costs significantly less for companies with an incident response team that tests an incident response plan than those without one (Ponemon Institute, 2020).
7. Proactive vs. Reactive: An incident response plan allows an organization to address threats rather than react proactively. This proactive approach can prevent breaches (IBM, 2020).
8. Incident Learning: Post-incident analysis can provide valuable insight and learning, strengthening an organization’s defenses (Cisco, 2018).
9. Legal Protection: A structured response to security incidents can provide legal protection in case of lawsuits or regulatory penalties (Cisco, 2018).
10. Business Continuity: An incident response plan helps ensure critical business operations can continue or quickly resume during a cyber incident (IBM, 2020).