Cyber Incident Response
Cyber Incident Response Plan Template: What to Include
A cyber incident response plan should include: purpose and scope, team roles and contact information, severity classification criteria, escalation procedures, communication templates (internal, external, regulatory), response playbooks for common incident types, evidence handling procedures, recovery criteria, and a post-incident review process. The plan must be tested regularly through tabletop exercises.
Andreas Johansson · Chief Executive Officer
Senior IT management leader with 25 years of experience in Cloud, Security, and Datacenter infrastructure.
Plan Structure
1. Purpose and Scope
- What constitutes a security incident
- What systems, data, and teams are covered
- Plan ownership and update schedule
2. Roles and Responsibilities
- Incident Commander (overall coordination)
- Technical Lead (investigation and containment)
- Communications Lead (stakeholder messaging)
- Legal/Compliance (regulatory notification)
- Executive Sponsor (business decisions)
- External resources (forensics firm, legal counsel, PR)
3. Severity Classification
Define levels (e.g., P1-P4) with clear criteria:
- P1: Active data breach, ransomware, critical system compromise
- P2: Confirmed intrusion, significant malware, account compromise
- P3: Suspicious activity requiring investigation
- P4: Policy violation, minor security event
4. Escalation Procedures
- Who to notify at each severity level
- Timeframes for escalation
- After-hours procedures
- Executive notification criteria
5. Communication Templates
- Internal stakeholder notifications
- Customer/partner notifications
- Regulatory breach notifications (GDPR 72-hour requirement)
- Media statements
- Law enforcement coordination
6. Response Playbooks
Create specific playbooks for:
- Ransomware
- Data breach / unauthorized access
- Business email compromise
- Account compromise
- Insider threat
- DDoS
7. Evidence Handling
- What to collect and preserve
- Chain of custody procedures
- Forensic imaging guidelines
- Log retention requirements
8. Testing and Maintenance
- Quarterly tabletop exercises
- Annual full simulation
- Plan updates after incidents and organizational changes
How SeqOps fits
SeqOps isn't an incident response tool. It helps before and after an incident: it shows the weaknesses to close in advance, and afterwards it confirms which vulnerabilities and misconfigurations are still open.