deepthi sHalf of 2025 is already behind us, and one thing is clear that cyberattacks aren’t slowing down. But the real damage doesn’t come from the attack itself. It’s what happens after. The downtime. The cost. The disruption that follows.
Take Jaguar Land Rover, for example. In August 2025, a cyberattack forced the company to shut down its IT systems. Production stopped. Losses hit around £120 million. Six weeks later, they’re still trying to get everything back on track.
Now think about your own business. Could you handle that kind of downtime? Could your operations survive weeks of disruption?
That’s where a cybersecurity incident response plan (IRP) makes all the difference.
In this blog, we’ll explore why having an IRP is crucial and walk you through the six stages of an incident response plan.
How Mitigata Helps You Build and Execute a Strong Incident Response Plan
Creating an incident response plan is one thing. Making sure it actually works when it matters most is another. That’s where Mitigata makes all the difference.
As one of India’s leading cyber resilience and compliance partners, Mitigata helps businesses design, test, and optimise their Incident Response Plans (IRP) to meet real-world threats. Our team of experts works closely with your IT and compliance teams to build a plan that fits your business operations and regulatory requirements.
Cyber Insurance Policy Starting at Just ₹95,000/ Year*
With Mitigata, you get the best market pricing and fast claims plus proactive defence through our free cyber risk console
With Mitigata, you get the best market pricing and fast claims—plus proactive defence through our free cyber risk console.
With Mitigata, you get:
- End-to-End Support: From gap assessment and policy creation to testing and continuous improvement.
- 24/7 Monitoring & Response: Our Security Operations Centre (SOC) ensures real-time threat detection and response, minimising downtime.
- Rapid Recovery Playbooks: We help your teams act fast, limit damage, and restore systems securely after an incident.
- Audit-Ready Compliance: Stay prepared for SEBI, RBI, and IRDAI audits with complete documentation and periodic reviews.
In 2024, 75% of organisations have experienced a SaaS security incident. Read this expertly created guide highlighting the importance of cyber insurance for SAAS companies.
Why Is an Incident Response Plan Important?
Consider an Incident Response Plan as similar to fire drills. When a fire breaks out, you don’t wait to determine which way to exit or whether or not to call the fire department. In a cyber-breach, the same conditions would apply. An IRP gets your team ready to respond quickly and effectively to the breach.
One of the primary advantages of a cyber incident response plan is that it helps minimise downtime and revenue loss during an incident. For instance, imagine a stockbroking firm has experienced a ransomware attack that takes its trading platform offline.
Without a clear plan in place, employees are unsure of their next steps, which can cause trade to halt and lead to clients losing trust. On the other hand, if there is a response plan, the IT staff will be able to quickly isolate the compromised systems and activate the backups to resume trading.
An IRP also helps with regulatory compliance. Frameworks like SEBI’s CSCRF, RBI’s cyber guidelines, and ISO 27001 all require organisations to have incident response processes in place. Failing to meet these can result in fines or audits. More importantly, an IRP helps protect your company’s reputation. Quick and transparent handling of a breach shows that your organisation is responsible and trustworthy.
Proactive Defence Begins With Mitigata’s Managed SOC Expertise
Our SOC combines automation, human expertise, and rapid response to contain attacks and strengthen your cyber resilience.
Key Phases of an Incident Response Plan
An effective cybersecurity response plan functions as a playbook that your team can rely on to engage during a crisis. This occurs in six simple phases.
-
Preparation
This is where it all begins. Preparing your team and working out the ground rules so everyone knows what to do if something goes wrong. A bank, for example, may conduct mock phishing exercises to evaluate how quickly employees can identify and report fake emails.
Why it matters: Your team will be ready to respond. When an actual attack occurs, people react quickly rather than wasting time deciding what to do.
-
Identification
Next, you have to identify what’s actually happening. Not all alerts are related to an attack. For instance, if there is a sudden increase in network traffic, it could mean there is an attack occurring, or it could just be system updates or other scheduled activities running in the background.
The goal is to identify and verify a potential threat as fast as possible by using monitoring tools, alerts, and user reports.
Why it matters: The faster you identify an incident, the less damage you will likely incur. The faster you detect an incident, the faster your team can take steps to contain it.
-
Containment
After it has been verified that an incident occurred, the next step is to contain the incident from spreading further. Containment can be either short-term or long-term, depending on the severity of the incident.
For example, if there is a malware incident, short-term containment could be disconnecting affected systems from the environment to stop the spread. Long-term containment may consist of applying patches or changing user credentials to prevent the incident from recurring.
Why it matters: Containment is a necessary step to ensure that the incident is contained and isolated from everything else. This step prevents the attackers from moving further into your systems or potentially exfiltrating sensitive information out of your organisation.
Are you counted among those 60% of GRC users who manage compliance manually? It’s high time to check these popular automated GRC tools in India
-
Eradication
Once the incident has been contained, it’s time to remove the root cause of the incident. To do this, you may have to delete the malicious files, disable the compromised user accounts, or patch the vulnerabilities that exposed you to the potential attack.
For example, if an employee’s credentials were taken via a phishing email, the team must not only reset the password, but also patch email filters and train personnel to recognise potential dangers.
Why it matters: Without complete eradication, the same threat may reemerge. This stage guarantees that the environment is safe to get back in.
-
Recovery
During this step, systems are returned to normal operation. Teams ensure that the network is secure and watch for indicators of reinfection.
An excellent example is recovering data from clean backups after a ransomware attack. Before returning to the network, the team makes sure there is no sign of malware left.
Why it matters: Recovery enables your organisation to restart operations securely. It also checks whether your backups and security measures are effective in real-world scenarios.
-
Lessons Learned
After things return to normal, the final phase involves a review of what occurred. What went wrong? What went right? What could be done better?
As an example, after a phishing incident, the team might find that even though detection happened almost immediately, communication between departments was delayed. This would allow the team to focus on refining their process and enhancing their ability to respond more effectively next time.
Why It Matters: Lessons Learned Build Resilience. It allows your organisation to learn from every incident, no matter how small, that can provide value and add to your organisation’s preparedness for the next incident.
Detect Every Threat With Mitigata’s Advanced SIEM Services
From real-time analytics to actionable insights, our SIEM ensures nothing slips through your defence layers ever again
How to Create an Incident Response Plan
Creating an incident response plan may appear complicated, but taking the proper steps makes it manageable and effective.
Evaluate your current security posture
Begin by conducting a gap analysis to define your current strengths and gaps, such as whether you have 24/7 monitoring or a SOC (Security Operations Centre).
For example, during an assessment, a financial firm noticed a lack of endpoint monitoring, which was swiftly addressed before it became a problem.
Identify significant assets and data
These items should be ordered in terms of criticality to assist in triaging during an incident. Organise them by importance to easily prioritise assets in the event of an incident.
Example: A stockbroker prioritising its trading servers over its email systems for faster containment during a DDoS attack.
Define Roles and Responsibilities
Assign specified responsibilities to team members. Your incident team may include your IT staff, compliance staff, internal communication lead, etc.
Example: After a phishing incident occurs, the communication lead will alert the firm’s clients while the IT team isolate impacted systems.
Want to know the secret behind faster SEBI CSCRF certification? Explore Mitigata’s practical guide packed with proven tips and insights.
Establish communication protocols
Clearly identify who should be informed, when, and how, both internally and externally. This contains escalation protocols, contact lists, and pre-approved public statements.
Example: A company with predetermined communication templates will be able to report the incident to SEBI within the 6-hour limit, avoiding penalties.
Create The Response Workflows
Develop documented workflows step-by-step to respond to the various types of incidents (e.g. ransomware, phishing, insider threats, data breaches, etc.).
Example: Having a documented phishing response workflow allowed for the containment of a firm within 30 minutes.
Conduct regular tests and updates
Conducting Mock drills or tabletop exercises regularly can help you ensure that your plan is effective. It should be updated if new risks, systems, or laws emerge.
Example: A company conducted quarterly simulations every three months. It helped them resolve an issue before it turned critical during a real incident.
Conclusion
By far, you have understood how an effective IRP can help in dealing with the incident faster, reducing the downtime and the potential losses.
If you are looking to simplify your cybersecurity strategy, Mitigata can assist you. We help firms create resilience against growing cyber risks by automating compliance inspections, assisting with cyber insurance, and responding to incidents.
Talk to Mitigata’s cybersecurity experts today and create an incident response plan that actually works when it matters most.
akshit k