Three Steps to Building an Incident Response Plan

According to the Identity Theft Research Center, 2017 saw a record-high in data breaches. The statistics show that organizations are bound to experience a security incident sooner or later; what is important is that you are adequately prepared. Here are three essential steps to building an incident response plan.

Create a plan
A good incident response plan (IRP) should begin to develop months in advance. Analyze your organization’s IT environment and determine which systems, services, and applications are the most critical to maintaining operations. Then, identify what crucial data must be protected in the event of an incident. By developing a plan of action in advance, you will find any gaps in policy, technical capability, or communication that may require immediate attention.

Practice
In the case of a breach, it is essential to act quickly and swiftly. If an incident should occur, you don’t want to appear flustered or disorganized to your customers. With simulation exercises, you can put your plan in action to ensure it your cyber security solutions would be effective in a real situation.

Document and communicate responsibly
Accurate documentation and clear communication of your response activities will be necessary for legal purposes (and as a courtesy to your customers). When going public with the details of the breach, it is essential that you are prompt and clear about how the issue was caused, the actions you took to respond, and what will be done to prevent the situation from recurring.