Security incidents are inevitable if your organization relies on technology, people, and data. The key to minimizing their impact is having an up-to-date, well-practiced incident response plan. Here are five essential steps to ensure your organization is prepared when—not if—a security incident occurs.

1. Assemble Your Core Incident Response Team

An effective Core Incident Response Team (CIRT) brings together key decision-makers and tactical leaders across multiple functions, including:

• Engineering
• Information security
• Information technology
• Legal
• Communications
• Change management
• Executive leadership

While senior leaders play a role, it’s just as important to identify the critical frontline personnel responsible for executing the response. Organizations should also eliminate single points of failure, ensuring no process or decision relies on one person alone.

2. Establish and Maintain Incident Response Policies and Procedures

Incident response policies must reflect current business realities and stay aligned across all departments. When was the last time your organization reviewed its response procedures? Ask yourself:

• Do our policies account for major infrastructure changes, such as cloud migrations or new SaaS tools?
• Are they cross-functional, or do they primarily focus on IT and engineering tasks?
• Are legal, PR, and customer support operating from independent plans, or are they fully integrated?
• Are roles, responsibilities, and escalation paths clearly defined?

Cyber incident handling policies should be developed collaboratively (with stakeholders from members of the CIRT) and tested regularly to ensure they are actionable, not aspirational. We recommend a minimum semi-annual review, with updates triggered by major changes in technology, staffing, or regulatory requirements.

3. Create Security Incident Runbooks

A runbook (or playbook) provides detailed, step-by-step instructions for responding to different types of incidents. Effective runbooks address:

Decision-making frameworks – Who makes key calls, and under what conditions?

Technical response workflows – What actions must teams take, in what order?

Backup and recovery procedures – Have backups been tested recently? Do assumptions match reality?

Runbooks should be tested frequently, with an emphasis on identifying gaps, eliminating bottlenecks, and ensuring clear delegation of tasks.

4. Conduct Security Incident Simulations

Simulated security incidents test the effectiveness of your policies, procedures, and runbooks. By running realistic exercises, organizations can:

• Identify gaps or conflicts in response protocols
• Evaluate cross-functional coordination and escalation paths
• Strengthen team readiness for real-world scenarios

5. Host Regular Tabletop Exercises (TTX)

Tabletop exercises (TTX) help leaders and responders develop critical decision-making skills under pressure. These discussions should be structured around an evolving security scenario, unfolding across five to eight phases, simulating how new information emerges during an actual incident.

Key focus areas during a TTX:

How does each team contribute to containment, mitigation, and recovery?

Under what conditions does the organization escalate the response or bring in external support?

What are the interdependencies between security, legal, PR, and executive leadership?

Unlike technical drills, there is no “winning” a tabletop exercise—the value comes from strengthening team collaboration, problem-solving, and response agility.

Building a Sustainable Incident Readiness Program

The frequency of these activities varies based on an organization’s size, industry, and risk profile. However, incident readiness should never be static. Organizations should establish triggers for review, including:

• Significant staffing changes within the CIRT
• Infrastructure or security architecture changes
• Regulatory updates requiring compliance adjustments

Even without these triggers, a structured security incident readiness review should occur at least twice per year.

EPSD Can Help

EPSD helps organizations build strong, adaptable, and well-practiced security response programs. If your team needs guidance in refining incident readiness, contact us today.