Since anyone can be on cyberattackers' radar, it's wise to be proactive by creating a strategy for managing cyber incidents or attacks beforehand.

An effective incident response plan can mitigate the impact of an attack to the barest minimum. However, some mistakes can ruin your strategy and expose your system to further threats.

Here are some incident response plan mistakes you should be mindful of.

1. Complex Response Procedures

Any situation that requires you to implement an incident response plan isn’t the most conducive. Such a crisis would naturally put you under pressure, so implementing a simple and comprehensive strategy is a lot easier than a complex one. Do the heavy lifting and brain-racking beforehand to make your plan easy and actionable.

Not only are you not in the best state of mind to process complex response procedures, but you also don’t have the luxury of time for that. Every second counts. A straightforward procedure is quicker to implement and saves time.

2. Unclear Command Chain

If you encounter an attack, how would you coordinate your response? You may have captured all the necessary procedures in your incident response document but if you don’t outline the sequence of actions, it might not be very impactful.

Incident response plans don’t execute themselves, people execute them. You need to assign roles and responsibilities to people along with a chain of command. Who's in charge of the response team? Making these arrangements ahead of time allows for swift action even when you are indisposed.

3. Not Testing Your Backups Beforehand

Backing up your data is a proactive security measure against any form of data compromise. Should anything happen, you’ll have a copy of your data to fall back on.

Even if you use a trusted backup application or service, it could suffer a glitch in a cyberattack. Don’t wait until an attack happens to see if your backup works; the result could be disappointing.

Test run your backup under circumstances within your control. You can do that with ethical hacking by launching an attack on your system housing sensitive data. If your backup malfunctions, you’ll have the opportunity to resolve the problem without actually losing your data.

4. Using a Generic Plan

Cybersecurity vendors offer ready-made incident response plans on the market that you could purchase for use. They claim that these off-the-shelf plans help you save time and resources as you could use them right away. In as much as they could save time, they are counterproductive if they don't serve you well.

No two systems are the same. An off-the-shelf document may be a good fit for one system and a misfit for the other. The most effective incident response plans are custom. You get a chance to address the specific conditions of your system and build your defense around your strengths.

You don’t necessarily have to create a plan from scratch, reputable cybersecurity frameworks such as the NIST Computer Security Incident Handling Guide offer standardized response processes you can customize to your unique cyber environment.

5. Having Limited Knowledge of Your Network’s Environment

You can only tailor your incident response plan to your system when you understand its security environment including the active applications, open ports, third-party services, etc. This understanding comes from having complete visibility of your operations. A lack of visibility keeps you in the dark about what went wrong and how to resolve it.

Know more about your operations by installing advanced network monitoring tools to track and report all activities. These tools provide real-time data about the vulnerabilities, threats, and general activities on your platform.

6. Lack of Measurement Metrics

Incident response is a continuous effort. To improve the quality of your plan, you must measure your performance. Identifying specific metrics of your performance gives you a standard basis for measurement.

Take time for example. The faster you respond to a threat, the better you can restore your data. You can't improve your time unless you track it and work toward doing better.

Recovery capacity is another metric to consider. What portions of your data were you able to retrieve with your plan? This information helps you improve your mitigation strategies for the best.

7. Ineffective Documentation

An incident response plan is more useful when you aren’t the only one who can access and implement it. Unless you are on your system 24/7, you may not be around when something goes wrong. Would you rather have your team members swing into action and save the day or wait on you?

Documenting your plan is standard practice. The question is: did you document it effectively? Others can only interpret the document if it’s clear and comprehensive. Don’t be ambiguous and assume that they know what to do. Avoid technical jargon. Spell out each step in the simplest terms so that anyone can follow.

8. Using an Outdated Plan

When was the last time you updated your incident response plan? There’s a high chance that your system is no longer what it used to be when you created the document for resolving cyber incidents. These changes make your strategy obsolete and ineffective—applying it to a crisis situation isn’t of much help.

Think of your response plan as a supporting document for your system. As your system evolves, let it reflect in your mitigation strategy too. Revising the plan after every little change in your system can be tiring. To prevent revision fatigue, schedule a time for updates.

9. Not Prioritizing Incidents

Addressing all issues that may compromise your system helps you create a more secure digital environment, but it becomes counterproductive if you spend your resources chasing shadows. Incidents are bound to occur, so you need to prioritize them according to their impacts, otherwise, you’ll suffer incident fatigue and be unable to tackle serious threats when they occur.

Randomly selecting the events to prioritize over others can be misleading. Instead, establish quantifiable metrics for prioritization. Your most critical data should have your utmost attention. Prioritize incidents based on their relationships with your datasets.

10. Siloed Incident Reporting

The various components of your system offer unique information that can enhance your incident reporting efforts. While each system may be different, its performance or the lack of it impacts your general operations. Your response plan lacks substance if it doesn't consider data from all these areas. At best, it will address only the issues in the areas it covers.

Collect all data and store them where you can easily access and retrieve the information you need. This allows you to touch every area and leave no stone unturned.

Mitigate Cyberattack Damage With an Effective Incident Response Plan

You can't control when cybercriminals will attack your system and how they'll do it, but you can control what happens afterward. How you manage the crisis makes a lot of difference.

An effective incident response plan instills some confidence in you and your defenses. You'll be guided in taking meaningful actions instead of being helpless.