Incident response readiness: Training today to win when it counts

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If you’re a figure skater, you don’t perform a routine you’ve never practiced. If you’re a snowboarder or skier, you don’t compete without extensive training and practice runs. Yet very few organizations actually practice incident response (IR).

The global average cost of a data breach is $4.4 million USD, according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025. As threats grow in frequency and complexity, “security spending is expected to see sustained growth throughout the 2023–2028 forecast period, reaching $377 billion in 2028,” reported IDC.

Despite widespread awareness of cyber risk, readiness remains low — leaving most teams unprepared for real-world incidents. Incident response fails due to a lack of rehearsal, not a lack of technology.

Imagine training for the 2026 Winter Olympics with a gold medal on the line. Success isn’t determined on competition day, but by the many hours of disciplined practice and teamwork that happen long before the event begins.

“I trained four whole years to run nine seconds.” — Usain Bolt, eight-time Olympic gold medalist

When a cyber incident occurs, every minute counts. In those crucial moments, organizations that haven’t developed plans to identify, contain, and remediate threats often make avoidable mistakes.

Here’s a look at why organizations struggle with IR readiness, how to approach IR and prevent incidents, and how to respond in the event of a potential breach.

What’s holding back effective incident response?

A common misconception is that incident response readiness naturally follows from having the right security tools and people in place. However, many organizations face the same underlying challenges when implementing IR.

Teams are often expected to understand incident response processes and tools without having practiced them. This assumption of preparedness typically means employees receive minimal training. Unsurprisingly, this leads to skills gaps. Incident response is a performance under pressure. Without regular practice, even experienced teams struggle to execute quickly and decisively when a real incident hits.

Misunderstanding risk is another factor. Organizations frequently assess risk based on how likely an incident seems, rather than the potential business impact if one occurs. This leads to underinvestment in preparation and response planning.

Siloed responsibilities also negatively impact IR and slow decision-making; incident response is frequently viewed as ‘IT’s problem’ or ‘security’s job.’ But effective IR is a company-wide responsibility, requiring coordination from not only IT and cybersecurity teams but also network, systems, and application teams, legal and compliance teams, HR, and executive leadership.

An essential practice: Tabletop exercises

The most effective way to improve incident response readiness is through regular tabletop exercises. This practice allows organizations to walk through realistic scenarios in a controlled setting, helping teams answer critical questions before an incident occurs:

• Who needs to be notified and when?
• How are decisions escalated?
• Which teams are responsible for which actions?
• When does legal need to be involved?
• How does leadership stay informed?

These exercises don’t just test technical response — they reveal gaps in communication, ownership, and policy, and also strengthen response over time. Just as importantly, they help organizations build the incident response team itself, especially in environments where cross‑functional coordination didn’t exist before.

How to prepare for an attack before it hits

The quicker you react and respond to an incident, the less damage your data, devices, and network will incur. Of course, it helps to take preventative measures as well.

Here are some tips for getting in front of an attack before it happens.

1. Form an incident response plan and practice scenarios

Your IR plan should outline the actions your team will take in the minutes, hours, and days following an incident. How will you confirm a suspected incident is real? What are everyone’s roles and responsibilities once you’ve identified an incident?

Again, the keyword is practice: Run different scenarios to train your employees, from common ransomware to multiple attackers at once. Update, adjust, and reevaluate your IR plan as the cybersecurity landscape evolves.

2. Install a layered defense

The risk of human error, like employees accidentally clicking on phishing emails, is high, so you want to make sure you restrict a hacker’s access to the rest of your environment with a layered defense.

Limit domain administrator credentials across your entire environment. Remove local administrator privileges from users’ endpoints whenever possible. Do not allow individuals to assign local admin rights to groups of users on end-user desktops.

Make sure you have multi-factor authentication (MFA) in place on all accounts, especially executives. Keep remote desktop protocol (RDP) from being exposed to the internet unless you’re using remote desktop gateway servers.

Keep your eye on the endpoint. Endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools provide an additional layer of security by using machine learning threat detection modules that target fileless attacks, suspicious one-line commands, and malicious application behavior. They act as a second line of defense, alerting you in real time of potential problems and helping you address sophisticated attacks.

Don’t ignore prevention. A next-generation antivirus (NGAV) that utilizes machine learning technologies (as opposed to easily bypassed signature-based technologies) will reduce the workload on your staff and better utilize your EDR systems. By preventing the majority of attacks from happening, an NGAV frees up the security team to search for more advanced persistent threats.

3 steps in the immediate aftermath of a cyberattack

Preparation and rehearsal are key, but in case of an incident, confident execution is your next crucial step. Here are three important actions to take after learning of a potential breach:

1. Scope the attack

One of the most common mistakes after an incident is to immediately rebuild your environment using your backups. It may seem like a quick path to recovery, but ultimately, it’ll cost you more time and headaches.

If you rebuild before you know how the threat actor got into your system in the first place, you’re back at square one. The same security flaws are still available to the attacker, even after all the time you spent rebuilding the environment. For example, if hackers enter your virtual servers and you simply rebuild them, they’ll still have access and can lock you out of your entire environment.

If you don’t fully scope the attack, you’ll have no idea how to defend against it. You need to understand: How did the hackers get into your environment? How are they exerting control? What have they already done? Are they still in your environment?

2. Craft and execute a remediation plan

Now that you understand what an attacker is doing, what access they have, and how they’re moving laterally, you can craft a remediation plan that expels them from your environment and fixes your vulnerabilities.

To ensure there are no loose ends and you cut the hacker out entirely, this needs to be a coordinated effort, with all actions completed at the same time.

That could mean changing all passwords. It could mean rebuilding a server. Whatever steps you take, you must do them simultaneously. By denying access all at once, you prevent the attacker from adapting and maintaining control.

With the remediation plan, all parties involved know their roles, understand their assignments, and are working on the same timeline.

3. Clean up and rebuild

Once you’ve closed off the hacker’s entry point, and locked them out of your environment, it’s time to rebuild. This can be a time-consuming step, but since you’ve already identified and remediated your vulnerabilities, you ensure you only have to rebuild once.

Take note of any lessons learned from the incident and what you can improve, whether it’s adding new security tools, scheduling user training, or hiring for new skills you need on your team. Continue regular testing and scenario training and take steps to prevent the next attack.

Incident response doesn’t end when systems come back online. Every incident, whether real or simulated, should feed into an ever-maturing cycle, including:

• Updating policies and procedures.
• Improving training and communication.
• Adjusting infrastructure and controls.
• Clarifying roles and responsibilities.

Organizations that treat incident response as an evolving capability, rather than a static plan, will be far better equipped to handle future threats.

Stay ready to solve what’s next

Whether on the world stage or during a cyber crisis, your level of preparation can lead you to victory.

“Effective crisis response means regularly testing incident response (IR) plans and backups, defining clear roles in the event of a breach, and conducting crisis simulations,” according to IBM. A useful question every organization should ask is: What’s preventing you from detecting and responding to an incident quickly and confidently today?

By planning ahead with layered defenses and a well-rehearsed IR plan, quickly analyzing and containing breaches, and taking a coordinated approach to remediation, you give yourself the best chance to limit the damage and get back up and running.

Building incident response maturity starts with strategy. Organizations benefit most when you first define:

• What effective response looks like for your business.
• How quickly you need to detect and respond.
• What current organizational barriers slow you down.

From there, training, policy development, and technology decisions can follow. SHI can support you through this process by combining strategic guidance with deep technical expertise. From developing incident response strategies to supporting specialized scenarios, we help you move from reactive to prepared. Pinpoint risks and maturity gaps with our free Security Posture Review, offering a complete technical analysis with practical insights to improve your security effectiveness. Get stronger incident readiness and put your plan to the test with immersive tabletop exercises via Stratascale’s governance, risk, and compliance services.

By investing in preparation, practicing with purpose, and involving the entire team, you can respond to incidents faster and reduce the impact on your organization.

NEXT STEPS

To evaluate your incident response plan and develop your strategy for success, connect with one of SHI’s security experts.