Incident Response Plan: How to Prepare Your Company for Cyber Attacks

Cyber attacks aren’t a question of “if,” but “when.” In 2026, the average company faces more sophisticated threats than ever before — from AI-powered phishing to supply chain attacks. An Incident Response Plan (IRP) isn’t a luxury, it’s an existential necessity. And the difference between companies that survive an attack and those that don’t lies in preparation.

Why you need an Incident Response plan¶

The statistics are unforgiving: 60% of small and medium businesses cease operations within six months of a serious cyber incident. It’s not just about data loss — it’s about loss of customer trust, regulatory violations, legal consequences, and operational paralysis.

Time factor is decisive¶

The IBM Security Report 2026 shows that organizations with active IRPs identify and contain breaches on average 76 days faster than those without a plan. Response speed directly correlates with damage costs — every hour of delay costs a company an average of $45,000.

Without a preparedness plan, teams waste time searching for contacts, discussing competencies, and improvising processes. In critical moments, you can’t afford to “make it up as you go.”

Regulatory pressure is increasing¶

The NIS2 Directive effective from October 2024 requires essential and important entities to demonstrate preparedness for cyber incidents. It’s not just a compliance checkbox — regulators check actual functionality of processes, testing, and plan updates.

GDPR additionally sets a 72-hour deadline for personal data breach reporting. Without a functional IRP, you can’t meet even basic notification obligations, leading to fines up to 4% of annual turnover.

6 phases of incident response according to NIST framework¶

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework defines six key phases of incident response. Each phase has its specific objectives, activities, and success metrics. It’s not a linear process — phases can overlap and repeat depending on incident development.

1. Preparation¶

Creating teams, processes, technical infrastructure, and communication channels. Regular testing and procedure updates.

2. Identification¶

Detection of security incident through monitoring, alerts, or external reports. Initial severity classification.

3. Containment¶

Immediate measures to prevent incident spread. Isolation of affected systems without loss of evidence.

4. Eradication¶

Removal of malware, closing security gaps, and eliminating root cause of incident. Thorough environment sanitization.

5. Recovery¶

Gradual return of systems to operation with additional monitoring. Verification that threat is truly eliminated.

6. Lessons learned¶

Post-incident review, lesson documentation, and security measure updates. Process improvements for the future.

Key implementation points¶

The preparation phase is most critical. 80% of IRP success is decided before an incident even occurs. You must have defined roles, contacts, escalation matrices, technical procedures, and communication templates. Everything must be tested and current.

Document everything from the first minute. Legal consequences of incidents often depend on ability to demonstrate due diligence in response process. Every decision, every action, and every communication must be recorded with timestamps.

Common mistakes in IRP creation¶

From our experience implementing incident response plans for enterprise clients, we see recurring mistakes that dramatically reduce incident response effectiveness.

1. Plan exists only on paper¶

Most common problem: IRP is created for compliance but never tested in practice. Tabletop exercises reveal process gaps — contacts are outdated, technical procedures non-functional, roles unclear. You must test your plan at least twice a year with different scenarios.

2. Unclear roles and competencies¶

In crisis situations, there’s no time to figure out who has decision-making authority. The Incident Commander must have clearly defined competencies including ability to shut down production systems without management approval. During weekends or vacations, it must be clear who takes command.

3. Technical preparedness on paper¶

The plan assumes a perfect world — logs are available, systems running, network functioning. Reality: attackers often start with targeted destruction of monitoring and logging infrastructure. You must have redundant log collection, offline forensic tools, and air-gapped communication channels.

4. Insufficient external coordination¶

Modern incidents often require coordination with external entities — cloud providers, ISPs, law enforcement, cyber teams, insurance companies. You must have contacts and procedures prepared in advance, not search for them during an incident.

5. Missing legal preparation¶

Cyber incidents are often legally complex — preservation of evidence, attorney-client privilege, cross-border data flows, regulatory notifications. Legal counsel must be involved in IRP from the beginning, not just as a post-incident consultant.

Incident response team roles and responsibilities¶

A functional IRP requires an interdisciplinary team with clearly defined roles. Team size depends on the organization, but key roles are universal.

Incident Commander¶

Central coordinator with decision-making authority. Manages entire response process, communicates with management, coordinates teams, decides on escalations. Must have both business and technical knowledge and ability to work under pressure. In small organizations, often CISO or IT director.

Technical lead¶

Responsible for technical aspects — forensic analysis, system changes, IT team coordination. Manages containment and eradication activities. Must know organizational architecture and have practical experience with incident response tools.

Communications lead¶

Coordinates all communication — with management, employees, customers, media, regulators. Prepares communication materials, monitors public relations impact. Often from legal department or corporate communications.

Legal counsel¶

Ensures compliance with notification obligations, coordinates with law enforcement, protects attorney-client privilege, handles liability questions. Can be internal or external, but must be available 24/7.

Business continuity lead¶

Coordinates recovery of critical business processes, addresses customer and partner impact, activates alternative processes. Manages transition from incident response to business as usual.

# Incident Response Escalation Matrix

Severity 1 (Critical): <1 hour activation
- CISO: Primary contact
- CEO: Immediate notification
- Legal: Attorney-client engagement
- PR: Crisis communications readiness

Severity 2 (High): <4 hours activation
- IT Director: Primary contact
- Business owners: Impact assessment
- CISO: Monitoring escalation criteria

How CORE SYSTEMS helps with incident response¶

At CORE SYSTEMS, we don’t sell theoretical consultations. We deliver functional IRP systems with technical infrastructure, processes, and team training. Our experience comes from real incidents — from ransomware attacks to APT campaigns.

IRP Assessment & Design¶

We start with thorough analysis of current preparedness. We map technical architecture, business processes, regulatory requirements, and risk profile. Based on this, we design tailored IRP — not a generic template, but a solution matching actual threats and organizational capabilities.

Output includes: detailed playbooks for different incident types, escalation matrices, communication templates, technical procedures, and training materials. Everything in English with consideration for local legal framework.

Technical infrastructure¶

IRP without technical foundation is just paper. We implement SIEM solutions with custom rules for anomaly detection, centralized log management with long-term retention, forensic tools, and secure communication channels for incident response teams.

We use combinations of enterprise tools (Splunk, QRadar, Sentinel) and open-source solutions (ELK Stack, MISP, TheHive) depending on budget and client requirements. Key is integration with existing infrastructure and automation of routine tasks.

Training & Simulation¶

The best plan is worthless if the team can’t use it. We organize regular tabletop exercises with realistic scenarios — ransomware attacks, data breaches, supply chain compromises. We also simulate stress factors like unavailability of key personnel or communication system failures.

Every exercise is followed by thorough debrief with gap identification and process updates. Training isn’t a one-time event — it’s a continuous process that adapts to threat landscape evolution.

24/7 Incident Response support¶

Cyber attacks don’t respect business hours. We offer 24/7 incident response service with guaranteed response time by severity. Our team has experience responding to all incident types — from commodity malware to nation-state attacks.

In critical situations, we can take over as Incident Commander or provide technical expertise to your team. We have pre-arranged contracts with forensic specialists, cybersecurity lawyers, and PR agencies experienced in crisis communications.

Conclusion: Preparedness determines survival¶

An Incident Response Plan isn’t an IT project — it’s a business continuity initiative. Successful organizations understand that investing in IRP is investing in the company’s future. It’s not just about minimizing attack damage, but building resilience and rapid recovery capability.

Start today. Map current preparedness state, identify critical gaps, and create a realistic implementation plan. Every day of delay is a day your organization is more vulnerable. And attackers are waiting.