---
title: 5 Tips for Building an Incident Response Plan
description: Having an Incident Response Plan is crucial to maintaining a strong security posture. Get started with these tips.
image: https://www.ineteng.com/hubfs/IRP%20Infographic%20Blog.png
---

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 By: [IE Security Team](https://www.ineteng.com/blog/author/ie-security-team) on January 10th, 2018

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# 5 Tips for Building an Incident Response Plan

[Cybersecurity](https://www.ineteng.com/blog/topic/cybersecurity)

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Today, the risk of a security incident or data breach is higher than ever. Having an Incident Response Plan is crucial to maintaining a strong security posture so you can protect your business before, during and after an attack.

Use these 5 tips to start building your basic incident response plan today.

**1. Improve your detection capabilities**

Help your workforce and executives understand security risks and what to look for. Also, take advantage of tools that automate the monitoring of network traffic and user behavior.

**2. Create a dedicated response team**

Identify a leader and empower a team of individuals to minimize the impact of security incidents and restore operations as quickly as possible. The team should include IT, business continuity, communications, documentation, and legal/HR roles.

**3. Draft an incident response process**

There’s no need for a complex plan, start simple. The key here is to document standards and ensure consistency in how you respond to security incidents. Try an in-person test (tabletop exercise).

**4. Connect people and tools**

Connect both people and tools with the necessary capabilities from around your organization. Chances are, much of what you need is already in place.

**5. Understand where you have gaps**

After you draft your process and go through some testing, identify where you have capability or capacity gaps and build a plan to address them.

 

**BONUS TIP: Get help filling in the gaps**

Utilize a third-party to help you identify and address gaps in your Incident Response Plan. Doing so can improve your overal plan, threat detection capabilities, and how you respond to threats. 

**Save these tips and share with your colleagues by clicking and saving!**

[![Incident Response Infographic Final.png](https://www.ineteng.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Incident%20Response%20Infographic%20Final.png?width=640&name=Incident%20Response%20Infographic%20Final.png)](https://www.ineteng.com/hubfs/Incident%20Response%20Infographic.pdf)

Want even more help creating an Incident Response Plan? Download our [free incident response checklist](https://info.ineteng.com/incident-response-essentials-checklist) to use as you build out your Incident Response plan, or [contact](https://ineteng.com/contact) out Security Team today.

 

 

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