How To Make an Incident Response Plan (Template Included)

An incident response plan is a documented strategy that outlines how your business will detect, respond to and recover from cybersecurity incidents. It ensures that you and the rest of your organization know exactly what to do when something goes wrong.

Every business should have an incident response plan, regardless of size or industry, but many organizations operate without one.

Without an incident response plan, even a minor incident, like an employee clicking a phishing link, can spiral into a full-blown crisis that will have an impact that reaches far beyond disrupting your business.

Here’s how to create an incident response plan (template included) that will protect your business when you need it most.

Tips for Creating an Effective Incident Response Plan

Before you can respond to incidents, you need to understand what you’re protecting and what threats your business is most likely to face. Your risk assessment should consider:

• What data you store (This will include, at a minimum, financial records, intellectual property, customer data and employee data.)
• Where your data is stored (Data can be found on cloud platforms, on-premises servers, employee devices and third-party systems.)
• Who has access to your data (Your employees, contractors, vendors and customers all have varying levels of access to certain types of data.)
• How access to data is gained (The different ways authorized users access the data, such as via VPN connections, remote desktop, cloud applications and physical access, can pose security vulnerabilities.)
• Your most likely threats (Factors like your specific industry, business size and attack type patterns can help to determine if your business is more likely to be targeted by phishing attacks, ransomware, insider threats, vendor breaches, etc.)

For most businesses, it will be wise to focus your initial planning on the highest-probability incidents and common scenarios, rather than trying to address every possible threat.

It’s also helpful to create an incident response team within your organization. The size of your incident response team is not as important as ensuring that every role is clearly defined. Even a small business should designate an incident response leader, an IT contact, a communications contact and a legal or compliance contact. It’s also ideal for each team member to have a backup in case the primary contact is unavailable.

To that end, avoid treating your incident response plan as a technical manual; it’s an emergency playbook that anyone on your team might need to use, particularly if they are under stress. Use clear, simple language that non-technical staff can easily understand and follow. Within your documentation, develop step-by-step checklists for your most likely scenarios.

Communication can make or break your incident response, so your plan should address both internal and external messaging. Specify how incident response team members will be notified, when to escalate to management, how customers should be notified and any regulatory notification requirements. Keep in mind that some regulations require notification within specific timeframes. Know what your obligations are before a crisis occurs.

Incident Response Plan Template

You’re unlikely to create the perfect incident response plan from day one. Instead, you can begin with a basic framework that addresses your most common incidents, then refine and expand it based on experience and changing threats. It is a living document that must be reviewed and updated as your environment changes, or no less than once each year.

Here’s a basic incident response plan template you can adapt for your business:

1. Introduction and Overview

Using clear objectives, define how your business intends to respond to cybersecurity incidents to minimize impact on operations and protect customer data.

• Detail which systems and infrastructure are covered by the incident response plan.
• For planning purposes, consider defining an “incident” to be any confirmed or suspected unauthorized access to, or misuse of, your information systems, data or facilities.
• Specify who has authority to execute the plan, such as which stakeholders from IT, legal, HR, management, etc., are involved in the response activities.
• List relevant compliance standards your organization must meet, such as HIPAA for healthcare data, or PCI DSS for payment processing. Also include data breach notification laws or industry-specific regulations that govern incident response and notification timelines.

2. Roles and Responsibilities

Detail the incident response team structure. Specify who is responsible for which duties and what the escalation plans should be.

3. Incident Classification

Your business will have unique needs and a risk tolerance that should inform how you prioritize potential incidents. You can begin by categorizing the incidents by type and prioritize the response based on factors like scope, likely impact, time-critical nature and resource availability.

It’s common to use a four-level severity classification (critical, high, medium, low), but you should make sure to adapt your classification methods based on your particular business.

4. Response Procedures

Outline how your organization should respond to every stage of an incident:

• Identification – How will you monitor alerts from security tools, employee reports and customer complaints? Describe how you will assess severity and document what happened, when it was discovered, systems affected and potential impact.
• Containment – What immediate actions will your team take to stop the incident from spreading? What measures will be implemented to maintain your business operations while addressing the incident?
• Eradication – How will your organization determine how the incident occurred and what vulnerabilities were exploited? (Remediation may require removing malware, patching vulnerabilities, resetting compromised credentials and rebuilding affected systems from clean backups.)
• Recovery – What will your team do to bring systems back online in a controlled manner, confirming that the systems are clean and secure before full operation? How will you implement enhanced monitoring to ensure the threat doesn’t resurface?
• Lessons Learned – How will your organization document what happened and how it was handled, highlighting what worked well and what could be improved? What is the process for revising your procedures based on what you’ve learned?

5. Communication Plan

For internal communication, the main goal is to keep all relevant personnel informed and aligned. With external communication, you should focus on managing the message to parties outside the organization. In both cases, it’s essential to maintain trust and transparency.

6. Testing and Maintenance

Conduct tabletop exercises quarterly and full simulations annually. Review and update the plan at least annually or after any significant incident.

7. Appendix

This should be the go-to source for emergency contacts, incident checklists, documentation forms and vendor contact information.

Learn More About Making an Effective Incident Response Plan

When a cybersecurity incident occurs, you have to be able to respond effectively as quickly as possible. The decisions you make in those critical first moments will determine whether you face a manageable disruption or a business-threatening crisis.

The incident response plan template above provides a solid foundation, but every business has unique risks, systems and regulatory requirements that need specialized attention. The best incident response plan for your business is one that is tailored to your specific environment and tested regularly to ensure it works when you need it most.

An experienced Warren Averett Technology Group advisor can help you create a customized incident response plan and develop a strategy that fits your business. Schedule a consultation with WATG to discuss your incident response planning needs and learn how we can help you prepare for cybersecurity incidents before they happen.