Skip to content
NOW AVAILABLE Feature Release! Learn About Our Enhanced Capabilities for Prioritizing Remediation Learn more >>

PlexTrac ConceptsIncident Response (IR)

What Is Incident Response (IR)

Incident response (IR) is the process of identifying, containing, and mitigating cybersecurity threats to prevent a breach or cyberattack. By creating an incident response plan that includes cross-departmental team members from security, IT, HR, legal, marketing, and leadership, organizations can ensure their organization is prepared to take action quickly.

Effective IR plans should contain a variety of cyber incident scenarios with detailed, actionable playbooks on how to correctly respond. IR plans can also reduce mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to remediate (MTTR), which are two of the most important metrics in evaluating an organization’s security posture.  

How Does Incident Response Work?

Incident response includes several steps:

  1. Preparation: Create an incident management plan, including Tabletop exercises (TTX) to prepare in advance of potential attacks.
  2. Detection: Identify incidents, assess impact, and report accordingly.
  3. Response: Mitigate, contain, and remediate threats quickly.
  4. Recovery: Restore and repair systems and data backups. 
  5. Learn and Retest: Review what went wrong, make improvements to prevent similar attacks, and test incident response processes. 

What Are Common Incident Response Tools?

Common tools leveraged for incident response include:

  • Attack surface management (ASM)
  • Endpoint detection and response (EDR)
  • Security information and event management (SIEM)
  • Security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR)
  • User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA)
  • Extended detection and response (XDR)

Book a Demo Today

How Does AI Enhance Incident Response?

Artificial intelligence (AI) enhances incident response by automating data collection and analyzing large data sets to discover patterns and find unusual behavior efficiently through machine learning and other advanced technologies. Automated incident response helps reduce manual, routine processes and empowers security teams to focus on more strategic initiatives.

How Can PlexTrac Support Incident Response?

PlexTrac is the #1 AI-powered pentest reporting and vulnerability data management platform that helps cybersecurity teams address the most critical threats and vulnerabilities efficiently. PlexTrac aggregates data from all your tools, enables collaborative proactive security exercises, and supports remediation prioritization and tracking to empower effective incident response.

Schedule a personalized demo and see PlexTrac in action today.