Do you know how your company would react to an attack today?
This is the question that has guided more mature companies to develop preventive, structured, and sustainable strategies to deal with cyberattacks before it’s too late.
According to the Fortinet 2023 Global Ransomware Report, 78% of organizations claimed to be “very” or “extremely” prepared to contain ransomware attacks, but half of them still fell victim to an incident in the last year.
This reveals that, even with a perception of readiness, many companies still rely on improvised reactions, facing real risks to their reputation, continuity, and business value.
What Exactly Is an Incident Response Plan?
An incident response plan is a structured set of processes, responsibilities, and tools that guides a company from the detection to the containment and recovery of a security incident.
More than just a document, it is a practice of operational maturity. Companies with a well-defined plan react faster, limit impacts, and turn crises into learning opportunities.
In practice, the plan becomes a strategic pillar for companies that understand resilience cannot be improvised.
The Risks of Operating Without a Structured Plan
By not having an incident response plan, a company assumes risks that go far beyond data loss:
- Extended time to detect and contain attacks;
- Reactive and uncoordinated decisions;
- Damage to corporate image;
- Interruption of critical operations;
- Difficulty in complying with regulations like LGPD and ISO 27001.
On the other hand, prepared organizations can act with precision, communicate with transparency, and maintain control even in adverse situations.
How to Structure a Functional Incident Response Plan
If your company is evaluating the implementation of a response plan, some criteria should be observed from the start:
- Understand Your Risks and Priorities The first step is to map critical assets and the most likely attack scenarios. This allows you to customize the plan to focus on what truly matters.
- Define Roles and Responsibilities Who activates the plan? Who communicates? Who investigates? Each step must have clear responsibilities, with the authority to make quick decisions.
- Create Playbooks for Each Type of Incident Data breaches, ransomware, system unavailability—each scenario requires a specific script for response, communication, and recovery.
- Adopt Technologies That Accelerate Response Solutions like SIEM, EDR, SOAR, and XDR provide visibility, automation, and agility in identifying and containing threats.
- Train and Simulate Frequently Realistic simulations help validate the plan, identify gaps, and increase the confidence of the teams involved.
What Differentiates a Reactive Plan from an Intelligent Approach?
Many companies have generic documents that don’t work in practice. A functional and intelligent incident response plan needs to:
- Be integrated with IT and security governance;
- Be updated based on real-world learnings;
- Have clear performance and response time indicators;
- Have leadership support and multidisciplinary involvement.
It’s the difference between a plan “on paper” and a living structure that truly protects the business.
Incident Response Plan: Your Next Step Toward Resilience
Companies that evolve from improvisation to prevention gain something no single technology can offer: control in crisis scenarios.
A well-constructed incident response plan accelerates decisions, protects critical assets, prevents losses, and strengthens the trust of customers, partners, and the market.
If your organization doesn’t have this type of preparation yet, the ideal time to start is now.
Want to structure your plan with intelligence and efficiency?
Altasnet helps companies develop response plans aligned with their environment, maturity level, and business objectives.
Speak with our specialists and learn how to transform your security strategy with a focus on true resilience.
