Published Nov 8, 2025 · 8 min read
Incident response in regulated sectors needs speed, precision, and evidence. This playbook balances business continuity with forensic rigor.
Core Fundamentals
- Preparation: IR plan, roles, decision matrix, comms templates.
- Detection: Tuned alerts for OT anomalies, cloud drift, and identity abuse.
- Containment: Short-term isolation runbooks and long-term remediation steps.
- Eradication & Recovery: Reimage, patch, rotate creds, and validate via purple-team.
- Post-Incident: Blameless review, control updates, and training.
Staffing to Succeed
Stand up a pod with an IR lead, forensics analyst, threat intel liaison, and platform owner. Pre-stage access, tools, and evidence storage.
Response Metrics
Target MTTR < 4 hours for high-severity incidents; mean dwell time under 24 hours.