Learn what an incident response plan is, how to build one, and why secure, out-of-band communication belongs in every IR plan.
No organization is immune to cybersecurity incidents. Whether it's ransomware, phishing, or unauthorized access, the speed and effectiveness of your response often determine how much damage an attack can cause.
That’s why every company needs a well-defined incident response plan that gives security teams a structured process for detecting, containing, and recovering from security threats. It also helps organizations meet regulatory requirements, reduce business disruption, and improve coordination during high-pressure situations.
In this article, you’ll learn what incident response planning is, why it matters, and how to build one. At the end, we’ll also explore why maintaining secure communication is a crucial part of a response plan that often gets overlooked.
To see how Wire keeps incident response teams connected when primary systems are compromised, book a demo with our team.
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Key takeaways
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An incident response plan (IRP) is a documented, organization-wide set of procedures that defines how a company detects, contains, eradicates, and recovers from a security incident (particularly a cyberattack), along with the roles responsible for each step.
An effective cyberattack incident response plan clearly assigns responsibilities across security, IT, legal, communications, compliance, and executive leadership so every stakeholder knows what to do when an incident occurs. Instead of making high-pressure decisions in the middle of an attack, response teams follow predefined procedures that have already been reviewed, tested, and approved.
A well-built plan typically includes the following:
To put it simply, incident response aims to reduce the damage an attack causes and help the organization recover as quickly as possible.
Although these terms are often used interchangeably, there is a difference between them.
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Plan |
Primary focus |
Main objective |
|
Incident Response Plan (IRP) |
Managing cybersecurity incidents |
Detect, contain, eradicate, and recover from security incidents while minimizing damage. |
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Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) |
Restoring IT systems and infrastructure |
Recover critical systems, applications, and data after an outage or disaster. |
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Business Continuity Plan (BCP) |
Maintaining business operations |
Ensure the organization can continue delivering essential services during and after a disruptive event. |
An incident response plan focuses on the immediate actions required to investigate and contain a cyber incident. Once the threat has been neutralized, the disaster recovery plan guides the restoration of systems, infrastructure, and data. The business continuity plan sits above both, ensuring critical business functions continue operating throughout the disruption.
For example, a ransomware attack may trigger all three plans simultaneously. The incident response team investigates and isolates infected systems, disaster recovery teams restore clean backups, and business continuity procedures keep customer-facing operations running while recovery takes place.
You should develop these plans together rather than treating them as standalone documents. Doing so helps eliminate gaps between security response, infrastructure recovery, and operational continuity.
Also read: Top 5 cyber attacks on government and how secure communication can prevent similar breaches in the future.
An incident response plan is important as it helps organizations respond to cybersecurity incidents quickly, consistently, and with minimal disruption. Instead of making critical decisions under pressure, security teams follow predefined procedures that accelerate containment, support regulatory compliance, and reduce the financial and operational impact of an attack.
Before we look at how you can create an effective IR Plan, let’s go over some of the main types of security incidents.
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Wire Pro tip: An IRP is only as effective as your ability to coordinate during an attack. If email or your primary collaboration platform is compromised, your team still needs a secure way to communicate. Discover 5 essentials of a modern crisis communication plan to learn how to build a resilient communication strategy for cyber incidents. |
There are multiple ways attackers may try to access your company’s data. Each type of incident requires a different response, but all of them should be accounted for in your incident response planning.
Ransomware is a malicious software that encrypts critical systems and data, preventing employees from accessing the resources they need to operate. In many cases, attackers also steal sensitive information before encrypting it, using the threat of public disclosure to pressure victims into paying a ransom.
Beyond disrupting servers, ransomware can also disable your organization's primary communication and collaboration platforms. If your cyber attack incident response team relies on the same compromised systems to coordinate recovery efforts, response times can slow significantly. For this reason, every cybersecurity incident response plan should include a secure collaboration platform that remains available even when primary collaboration tools are compromised.
Here’s how you can build a ransomware response plan with secure, out-of-band communication with Wire.
Cyberattacks can include multiple security breaches like distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, malware infections, network intrusions, and attacks targeting cloud infrastructure or business-critical applications. These incidents often require coordination across multiple teams simultaneously, since the attack surface and the recovery effort both span several systems at once.
Here’s a 72-hour crisis response plan for cyber incidents your team can follow.
Phishing remains one of the most common ways attackers gain initial access to an organization's environment. Your employees may receive emails, messages, or phone calls that appear legitimate but are designed to steal credentials, deliver malware, or trick users into approving fraudulent requests.
Since phishing often targets people rather than technology, an effective response plan should combine technical controls with clear reporting procedures. Employees need to know how to recognize suspicious activity, report it immediately, and escalate potential incidents before attackers can move laterally through the network.
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Did you know: Many phishing attacks rely on impersonation and social engineering rather than malware. A recent SignalGate incident demonstrated how easily sensitive conversations can be exposed when communication platforms lack strong identity verification and organizational controls. Read the full breakdown and lessons from the SignalGate crisis. |
While most security incidents are carried out by external actors, your IRP should also consider insider threats from malicious employees, compromised contractors, or well-intentioned staff who accidentally expose sensitive information. To contain these, you should be able to quickly identify suspicious activity, preserve evidence, and restrict access without unnecessarily disrupting business operations.
Wire's ID Shield helps here by integrating with your Identity Providers (IdPs) to verify trusted devices. During an investigation, security teams can certify, renew, or revoke device trust, helping prevent compromised or unauthorized devices from accessing sensitive communications while the incident is being contained.
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Did you know: Companies where 81%-100% of employees work remotely see average breach costs of $5.5 million. Even firms with 61%-80% remote workforces face losses over $4.3 million per incident. Here’s how you can strengthen your internal data security to avoid this. |
Unauthorized access incidents typically stem from credential compromise or privilege escalation, where an attacker gains entry using stolen or improperly scoped permissions. Secure internal communication and Identity verification helps here since the response often starts with confirming which accounts and devices can be trusted.
There are two main frameworks which form the basis of how security teams structure their incident response plans. SysAdmin Audit Network Security (SANS) is a private organization that offers a six-step response framework, and many organizations also build their plans around the framework published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is widely regarded as the industry gold standard.
The NIST Incident Response Framework is one of the most widely recognized standards for incident response planning. It organizes incident response into four continuous phases that help organizations prepare for attacks, respond effectively, and improve their security posture over time.
Following the NIST Incident Response plan can also support compliance with regulations such as NIS2 and GDPR. To strengthen both resilience and compliance, organizations should include a secure fallback communication channel in their response strategy.
The SANS Incident Response Process, developed by the SysAdmin, Audit, Network, and Security (SANS) Institute, expands the lifecycle into six distinct phases. Many organizations adopt this framework because it provides more granular guidance, particularly during the early stages of incident detection and response.
Organizations that need a high-level framework aligned with government guidance and regulatory compliance often choose NIST, particularly in regulated industries and public sector environments. Teams looking for a more operational, step-by-step methodology may prefer SANS, as its six-phase model provides additional detail during incident handling and investigation.
Many organizations combine elements of both frameworks as a basis and create a custom plan that works specifically for their company. The most important factor is choosing a framework that your team can document, test regularly, and execute consistently during a real-world security incident.
Building an incident response plan requires clear, actionable guidance that teams can follow during a security incident. The plan should define responsibilities, establish response procedures, and ensure every stakeholder understands their role before an incident occurs. The following steps can help you build an IRP that is practical, repeatable, and aligned with industry best practices.
Start by determining exactly what your IRP would cover. Define the systems, applications, business units, and data the plan applies to, along with the types of cybersecurity incidents it is designed to address, such as ransomware, phishing, insider threats, or unauthorized access.
You should also establish clear objectives for the response process. These may include minimizing downtime, protecting sensitive data, meeting regulatory obligations, preserving forensic evidence, and restoring critical business services. Defining what constitutes a successful resolution for different incident types helps ensure everyone works toward the same outcome.
A Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) is responsible for coordinating the organization's response to cybersecurity incidents. It helps your company know the team members who would be responsible for managing the security incident in advance.
Your CSIRT should typically include representatives from security, IT operations, legal, compliance, communications, human resources, and executive leadership. Also appoint an incident response lead who is responsible for coordinating activities, making decisions, and communicating updates throughout the incident. Clearly documented responsibilities reduce confusion and help teams respond faster under pressure.
A severity classification matrix helps you evaluate incidents consistently based on business impact, affected systems, data sensitivity, regulatory implications, and the likelihood of ongoing compromise.
Each severity level should have predefined response requirements, escalation paths, and notification procedures. This enables security teams to prioritize critical incidents while ensuring lower-risk events are handled appropriately without overwhelming resources.
Create step-by-step procedures that responders can follow throughout the incident lifecycle. Document the actions required during preparation, detection, analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, and post-incident review so teams can work from a consistent playbook. The more practical and specific your documentation is, the easier it becomes for responders to execute under pressure.
The most important step of an IRP is to maintain clear communication. Your plan should specify who needs to be notified, when notifications should occur, what information should be shared, and which stakeholders (employees, executives, customers, regulators, and external partners) must receive updates.
Just as importantly, the plan should identify a crisis communication channel that’s end-to-end encrypted and remains available if your primary email or collaboration platform is compromised. Without an independent communication channel, response efforts can quickly become fragmented, delaying containment and recovery.
See how Wire provides a secure, out-of-band enterprise messaging platform that keeps incident response teams coordinated when their primary systems can't be trusted.
Make sure to keep updating the plan as your systems, staff, and threats change over time. A plan that was accurate a year ago may no longer reflect who's on the team, what tools are in use, or what threats are most likely. Conduct tabletop exercises, incident simulations, and technical drills to help teams practice their roles, identify gaps, and build confidence before a real incident occurs.
In practice, incident response follows a fairly consistent lifecycle regardless of which framework your organization has adopted on paper. Here’s the typical lifecycle if everything goes to plan.
This lifecycle repeats for every incident, and the quality of the plan is most evident in how smoothly a team moves through each handoff.
To make sure your network is ready for a security threat, start by identifying the systems, people, and processes your organization depends on most, then look for the gaps that could prevent your team from responding effectively.
Most teams skip this last step as they assume their communication channel will remain available during a cyberattack, but that’s not the case. Let’s find out more about this in the next section.
Nearly every incident response plan template available today treats the communications plan as a documentation exercise: a table listing who to notify, which template to use, and how frequently updates should go out. What these templates rarely address is a more fundamental question: if the incident itself compromises your primary collaboration platform, what does the response team actually use to coordinate?
That becomes a serious problem during incidents such as ransomware attacks, account compromise, or infrastructure outages. If attackers encrypt your collaboration platform, compromise administrator accounts, or disrupt the services your organization relies on every day, your incident response team can lose its primary coordination channel at the moment it's needed most.
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Wire Pro tip: Include your backup communication platform in every tabletop exercise. If your team doesn't practice switching to it during an incident simulation, there's no guarantee they'll know how to use it during a real attack. |
When any of these scenarios plays out, security teams often fall back to personal phone calls, texts, or consumer messaging apps like WhatsApp, which is not built to handle enterprise information.
That's why your incident response plan should treat communication as a critical security control rather than an afterthought. Your response platform should be:
Wire is built for exactly these scenarios. With E2EE video conferencing, messaging, voice calls, enterprise identity verification, and support for out-of-band communication, Wire helps incident response teams coordinate securely when their primary environment can no longer be trusted.
Wire uses Messaging Layer Security (MLS), which provides Perfect Forward Secrecy so compromised encryption keys can't decrypt past messages, and Post-Compromise Security, which automatically replaces compromised keys to protect future communications. This limits the amount of information an attacker can access, even if a device or encryption key is compromised.
Building or updating your incident response plan? Make sure your communication strategy is as resilient as the rest of your security program.
Explore how Wire helps organizations maintain secure, trusted communication before, during, and after a cybersecurity incident.
An incident response team, often called a CSIRT, is the cross-functional group responsible for executing an organization's incident response plan. It typically includes representatives from security, IT, legal, HR, and communications, along with a named incident response lead who coordinates the overall effort during an active incident.
Companies test their incident response plans through tabletop exercises, where the team walks through a simulated incident scenario, and full-scale simulations that mimic a real incident as closely as possible. Both approaches help surface gaps in roles, tools, or documentation before an actual incident exposes them.
A cyber incident response plan is a documented set of procedures specifically focused on detecting, containing, and recovering from cybersecurity incidents, such as ransomware, data breaches, or unauthorized access. It defines the roles, escalation paths, and technical steps a security team follows once an incident is confirmed.
The key components of an IRP include a defined scope, a named incident response team, a risk and severity classification matrix, a documented response workflow, a communication plan, and a schedule for testing and maintaining the plan over time. Each component works together to give the team a repeatable process that they can use during a security breach.
For SOC 2 compliance, an incident response plan should include documented detection and escalation procedures, defined roles and responsibilities, evidence of regular testing, and a clear record-keeping process that demonstrates the organization can identify, respond to, and learn from security incidents.
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