Being effective as possible in writing your incident response plan template doc can help you be as responsive as possible too, in case a breach happens. So in this post, we will be focusing on giving a guide. For example, tips, and steps in writing an incident response plan.
Let us begin.
Guide in Writing Incident Response Plan Template Doc
1. Define your objective of creating an IRP
First of all, define your objective. Why do you need an incident response plan? What are your goals? What would you want to accomplish with the IRP? And what are your plans in case of a business disruption or breach? Know your objectives in great depth. Then write them down on a piece of paper. This will be the foundation for your IRP.
2. Determine who are involved in the process
Once you have an idea of your objectives, draft the players that will play a role in the process. Think of external parties that will be involved in the process, like law enforcement agencies, media, and business partners for example.
Also think of internal parties that will be involved in the process, like employees, managers, and even legal personnel if necessary. Make sure to include resources needed for each party in the list too.
This will be helpful when it comes to resource allocation when planning during an incident or when drafting the IRP.
3. Identify what are the risks
Now is the time to identify what are possible risks for your organization in terms of cybersecurity matters. For example, malware attacks, social engineering attacks, denial-of-service attacks, etc.
4. Understand what are the potential impacts
Now is also the time to understand are possible impacts due to each risk identified in step 3 above.
For example, malware may lead to data breach and theft; denial-of-service may lead to downtime; social engineering attacks may lead to loss of reputation and public trust; and so forth.
5. Prepare a communication plan
Now is also the time to prepare a communication plan if needed (in case of a data breach for example). Knowing who needs to be informed and how they should be informed is important especially because you want to avoid panic and confusion among employees or other stakeholders like partners and investors if possible (maybe except law enforcement agencies).
So it’s better not just assume everyone knows what happened and what they should do when it happens. That’s why a communication plan is important especially when it comes to things like a data breach or other serious incidents that could have a massive impact on your organization.
6. List your potential responses
Now is the time to list possible responses that you could do when an incident occurs. For example, if a malware attack happens, you may want to take down your servers and access the server room to ensure that your servers are not further compromised.
7. Prioritize your responses
Now is the time to prioritize your responses listed in step 6 above. For example, if a malware attack happens, it’s important to take down the servers and access the server room as soon as possible because there is no point in recovering stolen data anyway once it’s been stolen since you cannot control what others do with that data after they have it. So, from this case, taking down servers/access to the server room should be prioritized as the #1 response.
