Cyber Incident Response
Security Incident Response Team Roles: Who Does What
A security incident response team (CSIRT) typically includes: Incident Commander (overall coordination and decisions), Technical Lead (investigation and containment), Communications Lead (internal and external messaging), Legal/Compliance (regulatory notification and liability), Executive Sponsor (business decisions and resource allocation), and subject matter experts activated based on incident type.
Andreas Johansson · Chief Executive Officer
Senior IT management leader with 25 years of experience in Cloud, Security, and Datacenter infrastructure.
Core Roles
Incident Commander
- Overall incident coordination
- Decision authority during response
- Resource allocation
- Escalation and de-escalation decisions
- Ensures process is followed
Technical Lead
- Leads investigation and analysis
- Directs containment and eradication
- Coordinates with forensic specialists
- Provides technical briefings to leadership
- Validates recovery before closing
Communications Lead
- Internal stakeholder messaging
- Customer and partner notifications
- Media and public statements
- Coordination with PR/marketing
- Message consistency across channels
Legal / Compliance
- Regulatory notification requirements and timelines
- Legal privilege considerations
- Insurance notification
- Law enforcement coordination
- Contractual obligations
Executive Sponsor
- Business impact decisions
- Resource authorization
- Board communication
- Strategic direction during major incidents
Extended Team
- IT Operations — system access, infrastructure changes, recovery
- HR — insider threat incidents, employee-related matters
- Finance — financial fraud incidents, insurance claims
- External forensics — advanced investigation capability
- External legal counsel — litigation and regulatory defense
Team Structure Models
- Dedicated team — full-time IR professionals (large organizations)
- Virtual team — members from other functions activated during incidents
- Hybrid — small dedicated core with virtual extensions
- Outsourced — managed detection and response (MDR) providers
Preparation
- Clear role assignments and alternates
- Contact information (including after-hours)
- Regular training and exercises
- Defined handoff procedures between roles
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.