Incident Response Planning

IR plan development, team structure, communication, and continuous improvement.

Overview

An IR plan ensures organized response to security incidents.

IR Team Structure

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│          IR Coordinator             │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Technical  │ Communications │ Legal │
│ Lead       │ Lead           │ Lead  │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Analysts   │ PR/Legal       │ HR    │
│ Engineers  │ Management     │ Audit │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

IR Plan Template

# Incident Response Plan

## 1. Purpose
Establish procedures for responding to security incidents.

## 2. Scope
Applies to all systems and data.

## 3. Roles & Responsibilities
- IR Coordinator: Overall coordination
- Technical Lead: Investigation and remediation
- Communications: Internal/external messaging

## 4. Incident Categories
- Category 1: Data breach
- Category 2: System compromise
- Category 3: Malware infection
- Category 4: Policy violation

## 5. Response Procedures
### Detection
- Monitor alerts
- User reports
- Automated detection

### Analysis
- Confirm incident
- Determine scope
- Classify severity

### Containment
- Isolate systems
- Preserve evidence
- Block attacks

### Eradication
- Remove threat
- Patch vulnerabilities
- Reset credentials

### Recovery
- Restore systems
- Verify integrity
- Monitor for recurrence

### Post-Incident
- Document lessons
- Update procedures
- Improve defenses

Communication Templates

# Internal Notification
Subject: Security Incident Detected - [Severity]

Team,
A security incident has been detected. Please follow these steps:
1. Do not discuss externally
2. Preserve all logs
3. Await further instructions

# External Notification (if required)
Subject: Security Update

Dear [Stakeholder],
We are writing to inform you of a security incident that occurred on [date].
We have taken immediate action to contain the incident.

Exercise Types

Metrics

Practice

Develop an incident response plan for a small organization.