IT Incident Response Planning: Common Mistakes and Best Practices

Cyberattacks pose a real danger to businesses, and without a solid incident response plan, your business won’t be able to recover quickly, resulting in extensive losses.

But don’t worry. With an effective incident response plan in place, your business can confidently handle any occurrence.

Common Incident Response Planning Mistakes

Thinking Cyber Incidents Only Come from External Attacks

Ignoring internal threats to focus on external ones means you’re just asking for trouble. When you ignore internal threats, you’re opening your business to easy cyberattack opportunities.

Internal mistakes, such as ineffective processes or human errors, can happen. Unfortunately, they can lead to issues like data breaches.

Instead, invest in your employees and set up a process to mitigate internal threats. Train your employees on cybersecurity best practices and establish protocols for handling sensitive information.

Then, periodically review your internal processes. This will help you find and resolve issues in your procedures that could lead to data leakage.

Focusing Only on Technology

You can’t build an effective incident response plan by solely focusing on technology. While tech solutions are valuable, they're only effective when they are efficiently leveraged by a team of trained personnel.

Build a complete response plan and train your response team on both tools and processes. Then, develop clear communication protocols for your response team.

Not Updating Your Response Plan

It’s a common misconception that an incident response plan doesn’t need to be updated once it's created. However, the truth is that without regular review, updates, and practice, a response plan will become ineffective.

Your team should consistently review your response plan. Establish a process to hold regular reviews, adapt your response plan to keep up with the evolving threat landscape, and conduct periodic simulations to refine your response strategy and ensure team readiness.

Incident Response Planning Best Practices

Don’t let your business fall to those common mistakes. Implement the following best practices into your incident response plan.

1. Identify and Prioritize Critical Data and Assets
2. Establish a Dedicated Team
3. Conduct Regular Trainings
4. Implement Continuous Monitoring
5. Establish Clear Communication Channels
6. Develop a System to Categorize Incidents

Identify and Prioritize Critical Data and Assets

Knowing precisely what resources you have will help your business allocate them efficiently during an incident, saving time and minimizing overall damage.

Establish a Dedicated Team

A cohesive and well-trained team with clearly defined roles can work together to ensure an efficient and effective response.

Conduct Regular Trainings

Regular training helps keep your team informed of the latest techniques and procedures, ensuring they can confidently handle any situation.

Implement Continuous Monitoring

Continuous monitoring systems can detect incidents early before they escalate, potentially saving your business from significant damage.

Establish Clear Communication Channels

Clear communication channels within your team and with external stakeholders ensure that everyone is on the same page during the response, minimizing confusion and errors.

Develop a System to Categorize Incidents

Categorizing incidents based on their severity and impact ensures that your team can respond appropriately to each incident, minimizing long-term damage to your organization.

Partner for All of Your Cybersecurity Needs

If you lack the resources and manpower to properly create an incident response plan for your business, it's a good strategy to seek the help of IT experts. This is where a managed IT service provider could come in.

An approach to cybersecurity should be practical and right-sized for your business objectives. That’s why the managed IT service providers at Clearview Group deliver an all-in-one outsourced IT package that puts your business priorities first and focuses on standards, alignment, impact, and strategy.

No matter the time or the problem, our highly experienced Service Desk is ready to help. You’ll always receive a premium level of support.

Get started with a free IT consultation.