An incident response plan provides structure during high-stress situations so teams do not improvise critical decisions.
Plan essentials
- Roles and escalation paths across security, IT, legal, and communications.
- Playbooks for common incident types such as ransomware or cloud compromise.
- Criteria for declaring an incident and moving between response phases.
- Communication templates for executives, regulators, and customers.
Keep it current
- Conduct tabletop exercises at least twice per year.
- Update contact lists and call trees regularly.
- Capture lessons learned and feed them into control improvements.
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