Strategic Advisory

Incident Response Planning

Know what to do before the alarm sounds.

Develop and test incident response plans so your team knows exactly what to do when (not if) a security event occurs.

Overview

When a security incident occurs, confusion costs time, and time costs money, sometimes millions. Incident Response Planning ensures your organization knows exactly what to do, who's responsible, and how to communicate when security events occur. We build practical IR programs that work under pressure, then test them to prove they work.

Our Approach

Effective incident response isn't improvised; it's rehearsed. We build IR programs through documentation, training, and testing, ensuring your team can execute confidently when it matters most.

Current Capability Assessment

Evaluate existing IR documentation, team readiness, tools, and past incident handling. Many organizations have plans that are outdated or untested.

Threat Landscape Analysis

Identify the most likely incident scenarios for your organization: ransomware, business email compromise, data breach, insider threat. Plans should address realistic threats.

Plan Development

Create or update your incident response plan with clear phases: preparation, detection, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned.

Playbook Creation

Develop specific playbooks for common incidents. A ransomware response is different from a data breach response; playbooks provide step-by-step guidance for each scenario.

Role Definition

Clearly define who does what during an incident. IR team leads, technical responders, communications, legal, executives: everyone needs to know their role.

Communication Planning

Develop templates and procedures for incident communications: internal updates, customer notifications, regulatory disclosures, media statements.

Training & Exercises

Train staff on their responsibilities and conduct tabletop exercises to test the plan. Exercises reveal gaps that documentation reviews miss.

Common Questions

How is this different from your tabletop exercise service?

Incident Response Planning develops the plans and playbooks. Tabletop Exercises test them. Most organizations need both. We can develop plans that include exercises, or exercise existing plans you've developed. Our tabletop exercise service offers more extensive scenario simulation.

What if we have a plan but haven't tested it?

Then you don't know if it works. We can review your existing plan, identify gaps, update it as needed, and conduct exercises to validate it. Many organizations are surprised by what their exercises reveal.

Do you provide incident response services if we actually get breached?

Our vCISO engagement includes advisory support during incidents, helping coordinate response, advising on containment decisions, and managing communications. For hands-on forensics and technical response, we can engage our incident response partners or work with your existing relationships.

How often should we update our IR plan?

Review annually at minimum, and after any significant incident, major technology change, or organizational restructuring. Plans that reflect last year's environment will fail you in this year's incident.

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