What is the main goal of an incident response plan?

The main goal of an incident response plan is to effectively manage and mitigate security incidents. This involves establishing a systematic approach to handle and address various incidents that could potentially compromise an organization’s security posture. A well-defined incident response plan enables an organization to identify, respond to, and recover from security incidents promptly, minimizing impact on operations, protecting data integrity, and maintaining stakeholder trust.

While preventing attacks is a crucial aspect of cybersecurity, the reality is that complete prevention is impossible. Therefore, the focus shifts to being prepared for when incidents occur, ensuring that response measures are in place to handle the situations effectively. Additionally, while monitoring network activities and limiting user access are important aspects of a comprehensive security strategy, they are not the primary focus of an incident response plan specifically. The essence of such a plan is the structured response to incidents to ensure that the organization can withstand and recover from them efficiently.