Rehearsing your Incident Response

Practising your response to a cyber incident ensures you, your incident response teams and your stakeholders remain effective during an actual security incident. Performing incident exercises will help:

1. Identify potential weaknesses in incident response plans and procedures

2. Improve communication and coordination among incident response team members

3. Increase readiness and the ability to quickly and effectively respond to an incident

4. Increase confidence in your company's ability to handle an actual incident

You should consider the following when planning incident response exercises:

1. Start with tabletop exercises, and as you mature, include simulated incidents

2. Rehearse incidents that require the involvement of stakeholders from different departments and levels across the business, as the impacts of a cyber incident can be far-reaching

3. Use real-world incident scenarios and data for drills and exercises

4. Regularly conduct a post-exercise review and use the feedback to improve incident response plans

5. Continuously update and test incident response plans and procedures, including reviewing team member roles and responsibilities

ICA Consultancy has helped companies of various sizes and industries define and deliver cyber incident and crisis exercises, including identifying and delivering the required improvements.

We ran two of these in September 2026, the same ransomware scenario for a specialist bank and a national multi-site operator. What our facilitated incident response exercises found is written up in full.

Talk to us today. We can help!