Why do Organizations Need Incident Response Services? 2025 Guide

In the age of digital operations, every organization is prone to incidents involving data breaches, financial attacks, and loss of system controls. The way to prevent maximum loss is to be ready with a response plan that actively has strategies to deal with all kinds of attacks. The good plans also educate employees in case of a crisis, so they do not panic. So, without any further ado, let’s understand why organizations need incident response services today.

1. What Is an Incident Response Plan?

An incident response plan is a detailed plan developed to deal with emergencies of cyber attacks, where the plan has full details on how to avoid, manage, prevent, and recover from cybersecurity incidents. It has specific roles, duties, and responsibilities for each employee in case of any such cyber emergency. Emergency communication channels and escalation paths are also developed in such plans.

These plans serve as the first precautionary measures for companies so they can effectively deal with them without any of the employees panicking.

2. Why Organizations Need Incident Response Services?

a. Limiting Damage & Downtime

With such plans, the damage can be minimized, and financial resources and secured data can be saved to an extent. Such a plan also decreases the time to recover by preparing the employees to react accordingly.

b. Reducing Financial Losses

Organizations that deploy IRPs tend to lose less financially compared to the organizations that do not, as IRP helps in acting fast and neutralizing the attack.

c. Preserving Reputation & Trust

When an organization effectively deals with an emergency with a proper response plan it increases its trust and credibility in the market. Reputations are often based on crisis management, and IRPs are one of the first steps in dealing with any crisis.

d. Ensuring Compliance

With IRP, companies can easily enforce rules and compliance according to the business demands and needs. Compliance is necessary for any organization to run effectively and helps track the performance and activity of the employees.

e. Learning & Improving

These plans help the organizations to grow and learn more as each attack helps the company to identify its weakness and prepare for plan to tackle as so it does not repeat.

Learn how to Protect Confidential Data on Computer

3. Standard Frameworks in the Industry: NIST & SANS

These are the most used plans in Industries across the globe:

NIST

The National Institute of Standards and Technology prepared a four-step plan to tackle incidents effectively:

• Preparation – Policy development, team formation, tooling, baseline building, training, threat intelligence access.
• Detection & Analysis – Monitoring, alert triage, incident validation, and classification.
• Containment, Eradication & Recovery – Isolate threats, remove root causes, restore service.
• Post-Incident Activity – Document findings, evaluate response, update controls and training.

NIST treats incident response as a continuous, cyclical process, with each incident feeding improvements into preparation.

SANS Six-Step Framework

SANS Institute also has a six-step plan to tackle attacks:

• Preparation
• Identification
• Containment
• Eradication
• Recovery
• Lessons Learned

4. The Six Phases Explained

Here are the detailed steps of the six-phase plan:

Phase 1. Preparation

• Assemble an Incident Response Team (IRT) with representatives from security, IT, legal, and communications.
• Define responsibilities, contact chains, and escalation paths.
• Develop policies, procedures, checklists, and tabletop exercises.
• Deploy essential tools: logging, detection systems, playbook automation, secure baselines, and backup infrastructure.
• Collect and integrate threat intelligence (e.g., feeds, vulnerability databases).

Phase 2. Detection & Analysis

• Use SIEM/XDR platforms to spot anomalies like credential misuse, phishing, or ransomware.
• Triage alerts based on severity and business impact.
• Collect forensic data: network packets, logs, file artifacts, and user activity.
• Confirm the incident and determine its scope—affected systems/users, attacker tools, and timeline.

Phase 3. Containment

• Implement immediate (short-term) containment, such as isolating compromised systems or network segments.
• Plan and execute long-term containment strategies to protect operations and preserve forensic evidence.
• Isolate critical assets to block lateral movement and data exfiltration.
• Provide status updates to stakeholders, including executives, legal, IT, communications, and partners.

Phase 4. Eradication & Recovery

• Remove malware, revoke unauthorized access, patch vulnerabilities, and apply hardened configurations.
• Restore affected systems using clean backups or trusted images.
• Test systems thoroughly before bringing them back online.
• Re-enable services in stages to monitor for any signs of reinfection.

Phase 5. Post-Incident Activity

• Conduct a post-mortem: what went well, what failed, and what remediation is needed.
• Analyze metrics like cost, response time, and incident duration, along with any financial liabilities.
• Update detection rules, playbooks, patch policies, and incorporate new scenarios into drills and training.
• Share lessons learned internally—and externally if regulatory or contractual obligations require it.

Phase 6. Continuous Improvement

• Iterate the process: integrate lessons from incidents into the preparation phase.
• Schedule regular reviews, tabletop exercises, and live simulations.
• Leverage agile practices to enhance adaptability and responsiveness.

5. Cost of an effective response

• Financial cost- Insider incidents on average cost USD 211,021, making them a costly loss to organizations. Globally, Organizations are spending in the range of 20 million USD to tackle insider incidents.
• Early detection reduces cost- Deploying XDR slashes breach lifecycles to 29 days, compared to roughly 304 days in organizations without it. By implementing Zero Trust, you can save about USD 1.76 million per breach. Using AI and automation tools to deal with breaches, the cost of breach-related expenses is reduced by up to 70%, saving approximately USD 1.3 million.
• Regulatory & Insurance Benefits- A robust Incident Response Plan (IRP) helps reduce your insurance premiums and also helps with compliance.

Organizations with an IRP, on average, save over a million USD per breach.

6. How to Build an IRP:

Here is a step-by-step process:

1. Define Scope & Policies- Identify key incident types (e.g., malware, data breaches, DDoS, insider threats).

Establish role-based response procedures aligned to each type of incident.

2. Build Your Incident Response Team- Assemble a cross-functional team including cybersecurity professionals, IT operations, legal, HR, PR, and executive stakeholders.

Decide whether your team will operate 24/7 or on an as-needed (ad hoc) basis.

3. Develop Incident-Specific Playbooks- Create actionable, step-by-step playbooks for each incident category, covering:

• Triage and alert analysis
• Containment plans
• Evidence-gathering procedures
• Eradication and recovery steps
• Communication templates for internal and external stakeholders

4. Deploy Monitoring & Detection- Implement SIEM or XDR platforms with customized detection rules.

• Integrate real-time threat intelligence feeds.
• Ensure full visibility across endpoints and networks.

5. Conduct Tabletop Exercises- Simulate realistic cyber incidents annually (or quarterly for high-risk sectors). Test team roles, interdepartmental coordination, and refine your IRP based on outcomes.

6. Automate and Integrate Response- Leverage SOAR platforms and AI tools to automate repetitive response actions. Create automated workflows to accelerate detection and containment.

7. Track Metrics and Report

Monitor key performance indicators:

• Mean Time to Detect (MTTD)
• Mean Time to Contain (MTTC)
• Total incident cost
• Downtime

Share insights with leadership, auditors, and insurance carriers.

8. Review and Evolve the Plan

Continuously Improve your IRP using:

• Lessons learned from incidents
• Regulatory updates
• Emerging threat scenarios
• Frameworks like NIST 2.0 and the SANS 6-step model

7. Conclusion

Incident Response Plans help you effectively deal with attacks without your employees panicking and responding cluelessly. It also helps you recover, reorganise, and educate yourself with a better response after each attack. Incident Response Plans have become necessary to deal with breaches as they help you minimize loss and also cut the cost of effectively tackling the breach.