As cyber threats increase in scale and sophistication, with payloads that can cripple IT systems to cause operational disruptions and reputational damage, the need for a cyber incident response plan is increasingly clear.
In high-stress attack scenarios, an effective plan ensures that organizations act swiftly and strategically to minimise damage and recover quickly, while maintaining customer and stakeholder trust.
Creating an effective plan requires collaboration between IT, security, legal, and business departments. But where should organizations begin?
Key steps to building a cyber incident response plan
Identify the assets to be protected: organizations should start by clearly establishing the scope of assets and their associated cyber risk. Determining which data, systems, and resources are critical to the organization’s operations is crucial to understanding what needs protecting. Without thorough knowledge of the extent of the potential exposure, organizations can’t hope to establish a meaningful response plan.
Identify legal, regulatory, or contractual reporting requirements: with new regulations in place and approaching, and stringent reporting requirements being set, organizations need to ensure that they have visibility of all systems to help prioritise cyber incident response investigations. They also need to make sure they are aware of incident reporting timelines and processes to ensure that they are meeting requirements.
Identify potential cyber threats: understanding the most common types of cyber threats that could impact the organization, such as malware, phishing attacks, or insider threats, is essential in effective mitigation. New capabilities, based on AI foundations, are enabling some organizations to bolster their ability to spot threats and speed up response actions.
Understand business continuity priorities: whilst an incident will likely take precedence, having a list of key business requirements helps to prioritise recovery activities in favour of the most important functions.
Develop an incident response team: incident response is not solely the domain of security and IT teams but is most successful with a team of individuals from various departments. This should be a holistic and inclusive process where stakeholders should be consulted from across the business. Gaining leadership support is essential for critical decision making and establishing communication protocols across the organization. Presenting clear metrics on current organizational cyber risk in language different departments can understand is a key step towards achieving board support.
Develop incident response procedures: organizations should begin mapping out detection capabilities and toolsets, alongside procedures for eradicating and recovering from cyber incidents. Clear roles and responsibilities should also be developed to ensure everyone knows what they are doing and when.
Communications: establish communication strategies for your customers, suppliers, stakeholders, and investors. Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that establish the state of your known cyber risk and the effectiveness of current in-place controls can be effective communication tools in this context.
Test and refine the plan: regularly test the plan through tabletop exercises and simulations to identify gaps and ensure all team members are trained and prepared. Regular testing also allows organizations to adapt to new threats and improve response capabilities continuously. Remediating and learning from incidents are important final features of a successful plan. This enables organizations to safeguard against similar future issues and understand root causes, while addressing required security control enhancements. Organizations that are unable to learn from incidents will be highly susceptible to further breaches.
Wellbeing: a cyber incident is a significant event that can greatly impact employees. Implementing a wellbeing policy to ensure staff have appropriate support during an incident is important and can help maintain overall productivity.
Planning for the future
In an age where threats continue to grow in severity and frequency, building a robust cyber incident response plan is a strategic necessity for organizations. By creating and following a plan, organizations can help to reduce the likelihood or severity of a cyber incident and subsequently protect their vital assets.
Built on critical asset identification, heightened threat detection and detailed response procedures, in 2025 detailed cyber incident response plans will separate businesses into two groups: those confident in their pre-planning, and those burying their head in the sand.
The author
Paul McLatchie, is Security Strategy Consultant at Wavenet
