An incident response plan is a written, documented plan with six separate steps. It aims to assist IT, professionals and staff, in recognizing and responding to a cybersecurity issue such as a data breach or cyber assault. Regular updates and training are required to properly create and manage an incident response strategy.
In this article, we will discuss more the incident response plan. For example, what it is, and how it helps for the overall risk mitigation strategy.
Incident Response Plan: What It Is and Why You Need One
An incident response plan is a structured strategy for dealing with a data breach or cyberattack. It includes a series of steps taken in a specific order based on the severity and type of the incident.
What is the goal of an incident response plan?
The overall goal of an incident response plan is to minimize damage from a cyberattack. And to restore normal business operations as quickly as possible. This plan can help your organization respond effectively to situations such as:
- An attack from a hacker or a cybercriminal, which could result in the theft of proprietary information or trade secrets
- A virus or malware infection could disrupt daily operations and cripple an organization’s IT infrastructure.
- A denial-of-service attack, which could temporarily disrupt an organization’s access to its website and online services.
- An insider threat, which could damage an organization’s reputation. Perhaps by releasing confidential information to the public or customers on purpose or by accident.
For example, if you are managing an enterprise-grade application like SAP ERP which stores all your company financial data (including credit cards) and this gets hacked, you might be facing some significant business impacts due to the incident.
As a result, your customers might lose trust in your company brand. Perhaps resulting in plummeting sales & revenue numbers for your company. This might also result in the violation of regulatory compliances which might lead to dire legal consequences like fines and penalties (see recent multi-million dollar fine levied on Yahoo!).
This is why an incident response plan plays an important role in minimizing these risks. It helps you to respond efficiently so that you can resume your daily operations as soon as possible without suffering any business impact due to security incidents.
Without it, you are leaving yourself open for future losses due to security incidents that you might not be able to handle effectively due to a lack of preparedness.
Wrapping Up: Incident Response Plan is Important
A well-written incident response plan can help your business minimize the impact of a security incident. It will enable you to quickly recover from incidents and resume normal business operations.
It can also help you to reduce the risk of future losses due to security incidents by identifying the root causes of these incidents. You can then initiate corrective actions to prevent similar situations in the future.
Also, it is a structured strategy for dealing with a data breach or cyberattack. It includes a series of steps taken in a specific order based on the severity and type of the incident.
Thus, a response plan is a document that details the process that an organization will take in the case of a data breach or cyberattack.
