Why Every Organization Must Have a Successful Incident Response Plan?

Organizations across industry verticals are starting to realize the importance of incident response plans to attract and retain customers. However, with more technological integrations, the organization exposes itself to new and emerging cybersecurity threats. As a result, it becomes crucial for organizations of all sizes to develop and establish an incident response plan that can help deal with major and minor security threats.

Read More: EC-Council Certified Security Specialist (ECSS)

In this article, we will discuss the incident response plan, who should use the incident response plan, and why every organization must have a successful incident response plan in place.

What Is An Incident Response Plan?

Think of an incident response plan as an organized approach that helps the organization address and manage the aftermath of a data breach. However, the key to a successful response is a systematic, orderly, and well-thought-out incident response plan.

Whenever a security breach occurs, the organization can directly go into damage control, and panic can creep in suddenly. This is the same situation that the incident response plan tries to combat. The written document provides everyone within the security team with step-by-step instructions on how to contact during the data breach and how to proceed ahead for minimizing damages.

Who Should Make Use of Incident Response Plan?

An incident response plan used to be an optional safeguard measure implemented by few organizations in the past. However, with the new cybersecurity compliance standards emerging for different industries, an incident response plan has quickly become necessary for a well-rounded security plan.

The PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requires that the compliant entity develop an incident response plan, have a designated incident response team, test the incident response plan annually, and train employees on how to follow the plan for optimal results. Moreover, the Healthcare Portability and Accountability Act also needs compliance to have an incident response plan.

Even if no standards require your organization to have an incident response plan, it is still worth developing and implementing one. Therefore, every industry, from education to a financial one, must create an incident response plan.

Reasons Why Every Organization Must Have a Successful Incident Response Plan

1. Protecting confidential information and sensitive data

One of the major reasons why every organization must have a successful incident response plan is to protect its confidential and sensitive information. Data in the wrong hands can be held for monetary gains or leaked to the public if it is proprietary information. The incident response process helps the organization protect its digital assets by leveraging logs, securing backups, proper identity and access management, and strong attention to patch management.

2. Protecting business reputation

According to PwC, 87% of the customers will take their business elsewhere if the organization cannot handle their data responsibly. Therefore, if a security breach happens and the organization cannot handle the breach responsibly, the reputation is at stake. Having an incident response plan provides the business with a clear framework to deal with security breaches and thus allows to gain customer trust.

3. Protecting business revenue

With security incidents, business revenue is also at stake. Cyber-attacks can result in the loss of billions of dollars. However, when you have an incident response plan in place, it allows the organization to take action and contain the cyber threat immediately. Therefore, allowing the business to minimize damages, reduce downtime, and avoid losing more customers. However, if the organization does not have an incident response mechanism in place, it can result in catastrophic losses for the business.

Source: eccouncil.org