The top 10 best practices for incident response in 2025 are:
- Prepare Systems And Procedures
- Identify Security Incidents
- Create Incident Containment Strategies
- Automate Threat Eradication
- Continuously Assess Your Systems
- Centralize Alerts
- Tune The Platform
- Document And Report
- Review And Improve
- Train Regularly
Expecting to stop all cyber attacks at the network perimeter with standard cybersecurity controls looks increasingly unrealistic as attackers start utilizing AI and adopting more sophisticated and aggressive tactics.
Knowing that successful attacks are inevitable, and given that the average attack costs small businesses between $120,000 and $1.24 million, incident response becomes extremely important.
Following incident response best practices helps you to detect more attacks sooner, stop them faster, prevent escalation more often, keep any damage to a minimum, and recover with less effort.
Alternatively, insufficient incident response only makes attacks deal more damage more often.
This articles explores why managing incident response has never mattered more, and covers the incident response best practices everyone needs to excel at in 2025 and beyond.
Free Incident Response Policy
Skip the policy-writing hassle with our ready-to-use incident response policy template.
Understanding Incident Response
One of the leading incident management frameworks available is produced by the NIST, which defines a security incident as follows:
An occurrence that actually or potentially jeopardizes the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of an information system or the information the system processes, stores, or transmits or that constitutes a violation or imminent threat of violation of security policies, security procedures, or acceptable use policies.
A security incident could be a phishing email with a malicious malware attached that launches a ransomware attack. Or it could be a breach of sensitive data caused by stolen login credentials.
Many things, both intentional and accidental, can compromise IT and business continuity. Whenever that happens, for whatever reason, incident response takes action to stop the threat and restore the status quo.
In order to be consistent and systematic about stopping threats, the incident response lifecycle was developed, which breaks the response into a sequence of key steps that repeats with each incident:
- Preparation: Putting incident response plans, policies and preventative measures in place to prepare for the next incident.
- Identification: Figuring out when an attack is in progress, what assets have been compromised, and how to proceed with incident management.
- Containment: Stopping the incident from proceeding further and containing it inside an environment where it can’t cause additional damage.
- Eradication: Removing all traces of the attack from all parts of the system, along with any remnants that may have been hidden to enable another breach.
- Recovery: Getting all systems, data, and users back to their original state, starting with whatever is most important to business continuity and security.
- Lessons Learned: Exploring what went right and wrong with the incident response, then incorporating the lessons learned into the incident response plan.
Common Challenges With Incident Management
Incident management is all about moving quickly and acting decisively, but these common challenges can stand in the way:
Lack Of A Standardized Process And Defined Roles
Security incidents lead to panic and confusion, even on a computer security incident response team (CSIRT) trained to deal with these high-pressure situations.
Keeping calm and focused on what matters requires everyone to have a clearly defined role and specific responsibilities within a standardized process.
Every incident looks different, especially these days, but every incident response must proceed the same.
Inaccurate And Incomplete Data
Containment, eradication, and most other aspects of incident response require a full and accurate understanding of what’s happening, but inaccurate or incomplete data often distorts decision making and delays recovery as a result.
These issues arise from siloed data sources that are hard to integrate, analyze, or sometimes even access as quickly as incident response requires.
Delayed Reporting
It can be tempting to keep news of an incident under wraps, but anyone potentially affected deserves to be notified as quickly as possible, and many regulations and contracts now require prompt disclosure.
Another challenge arises when companies go through an incident but wait or forego reporting on it to management, causing issues to continue in the absence of accountability.
$35/MO PER DEVICE
Enterprise Security Built For Small Business
Defy your attackers with Defiance XDR™, a fully managed security solution delivered in one affordable subscription plan.
Incident Response Best Practices
1. Prepare Systems And Procedures
Incident management proves the adage that an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure. With an expanding attack surface and threat landscape, there’s lots to prepare for, which is why this part of the lifecycle happens continually whenever an attack isn’t in progress.
Most important for getting ready is creating an incident response plan that outlines roles and responsibilities, establishes communication channels and protocols, and prescribes specific playbooks or action plans.
Best practices strongly advise reviewing the plan regularly and updating it in response to changes in IT and risk, like the emergence of ransomware attacks on small businesses.
2. Identify Security Incidents
Speed could not be more important for incident response, making it critical to identify attacks as early as possible no matter where on the attack surface they strike or what tactics they use to evade detection.
That takes a combination of advanced threat detection tools, network traffic monitoring, and log analysis, all working in sync.
Automation gives incident response teams the speed and scale to, ideally, stay ahead of attacks or else minimize their negative impacts.
3. Create Incident Containment Strategies
Various best practices for incident containment include:
- Isolating affected system(s).
- Blocking malicious IP addresses.
- Disabling compromised accounts, among others.
Incident response teams must pick the right approach, and reach that determination as soon as possible to stop further damage.
Creating strategies, plans, and recommendations tailored to different types of threats helps eliminate guesswork and increase the odds of effective containment.
4. Automate Threat Eradication
Threat eradication requires a time and labor-extensive effort to locate everything affected, making it ideal for automation.
Tools can automate everything from removing malware and patching vulnerabilities to restoring affected systems and finding threat intelligence.
Automation helps with every phase in the incident response lifecycle, not just eradication, but tools alone are not enough.
Update incident response plans and policies to align automation with human efforts for maximum impact.
For greatest alignment, consider virtual CISO services to provide expertise and oversight.
5. Continuously Assess Your Systems
Best practices outlined in the NIST incident response framework and most others repeatedly stress the need to continuously asses systems and security controls.
Through vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, breach and attack simulations, and policies reviews, it’s possible to locate and resolve potential weaknesses before they get exploited.
Given the constant nature of change in cybersecurity, new weakness are always being created but not necessarily being discovered.
6. Centralize Alerts
In the quest to accelerate and improve threat detection, CSIRTs need to centralize alerts and create a single data source.
Not only does this eliminate confusion, error, and redundancy to help the incident response lifecycle proceed more efficiently, but it also creates a rich data source from which trends, patterns, and anomalies can be extrapolated.
Teams need a centralized logging and alerting system capable of collecting and correlating data from other sources and applying automation to contextualize alerts faster.
Free Security Policy Templates
Get a step ahead of your cybersecurity goals with our comprehensive templates.
7. Tune The Platform
Just like an instrument, security platforms require regular tuning, otherwise they will generate false alerts and other inefficiencies while becoming less effective against emerging threats.
Detection rules, threat intelligence, and alert thresholds are all things that require tuning, but really all aspects of cybersecurity require adjustment and updating over time.
As part of the incident response plan, include a schedule and methodology for tuning so it doesn’t fall by the wayside.
8. Document And Report
Handling incidents isn’t complete without reporting what has happened to all the requisite authorities and affected stakeholders.
Likewise, the cause, impact, and lessons learned must be reported on to keep everyone aware and to gain support for making improvements.
It can be tempting to do less rather than more when it comes to incident reporting and documenting, but the reverse approach yields better outcomes over time.
9. Review And Improve
Incident response can always be improved upon, and every breach comes with lessons to make the next response run better.
Dedicate the time and resources to review each incident, and the response, in detail, and be honest about what went right and wrong.
Turn the lessons learned into specific changes and improvements to prevent repeat mistakes while consistently improving cybersecurity performance and capability.
10. Train Regularly
Help the incident response team leap into action as quickly and confidently as possible by training them regularly and extensively. Cybersecurity and IT change so frequently that teams often need new or updated training.
And while there is no substitute for working through a real incident, immersive training and simulated incidents can provide invaluable “hands-on” experience.
As with so many other best practices, including provisions in the incident response plan explaining when, why, and how to handle training.
Pitfalls To Avoid When Planning Incident Response
Think of these as the opposite of best practices: mistakes that make handling incidents harder by putting unnecessary obstacles in the way.
Avoid these at all costs:
You Don't Start With A Plan
Having an incident response plan keeps the response from becoming chaotic and disorganized.
Some companies dismiss the need for an incident response plan, assuming it’s unnecessary because they can adapt on the fly—but this always proves misguided.
Creating a clear, detailed document before an incident happens, then updating it after each new incident, keeps the security team working as effectively as possible when it matters most.
Failing To Define Roles And Responsibilities
It bears repeating that incident response plans must be as detailed as possible and address every facet of the response—in particular the roles and responsibilities for everyone involved.
Otherwise, confusion breaks out, coordination breaks down, and errors, omissions, and redundancy are the result.
Define those roles and responsibilities, make sure everyone knows their duties (before the incident starts), then hold people accountable for their performance.
Inadequate Communication Channels
Information is the best antidote to cyber incidents. It needs to flow fast and freely between all members of the CSIRT, while also getting necessary information to the public and regulators, yet the hectic nature of the response often compromises communication.
As part of the preparation phase of the incident response lifecycle, establish and test communication channels, including secure communication channels like encrypted messaging apps or dedicated incident response hotlines.
Take nothing for granted—the more that communication protocols are explicitly defined, the less likely a breakdown will occur.
Not Regularly Testing the Plan
Incident response plans have a short shelf life because targets and threats evolve so quickly.
Also, the places where the plan has become outdated or insufficient may not reveal themselves until an incident is in progress and out of control.
Think of handling incidents as a muscle that must be exercised regularly by conducting drills and simulations designed to identify and correct weaknesses.
Base testing and training around emerging threats, nascent IT, and lessons learned from previous incidents—and take care to document everything for the purposes of compliance and continuous improvement.
Ignoring Post-Incident Reviews
After an incident, it’s tempting to look forwards rather than backwards, but never neglect the post-incident review.
Assessing each phase of the response, from first detection to final eradication, and looking honestly at what went well and what could be improved on leads each response to be more effective than the last.
Alternatively, ignoring post-incident reviews often results in repeat mistakes and worsening inefficiencies. Turn the review into a mandatory and systematic process with the goal of producing lessons learned that inform the next preparation phase.
$35/MO PER DEVICE
Enterprise Security Built For Small Business
Defy your attackers with Defiance XDR™, a fully managed security solution delivered in one affordable subscription plan.
Defy Your Attackers With Defiance XDR™
Definace XDR™ puts incident response best practices at your disposal and makes any business a hard target to hack.
It starts with powerful tools for detection that monitor for attacks coming in all forms from all directions.
Definace XDR™ sees the earliest indicators of compromise, then uses automation to kick incident response into high gear, doing everything necessary to prevent escalation, expedite containment, ensure eradication, and accelerate recovery.
Not only does Defiance XDR™ integrate and automate the most important parts of incident response, but it’s also a managed service led by cybersecurity experts.
When incidents happen, our experts take the lead 24/7/365, applying all incident response best practices, complying with relevant regulations, and using the tool to the fullest.
Add incident response to your list of strengths. Remove security incidents from your list of liabilities. With Definace XDR™, the future of your business is secure.
Article by
Joshua is a diversely-skilled cybersecurity professional with over a decade of cybersecurity experience previously working for the Department of Defense.
Related Content
