What is the primary purpose of an incident response plan?

The primary purpose of an incident response plan is to outline the procedures and resources needed to respond to cyber incidents effectively. This involves identifying the steps that must be taken when a cybersecurity event occurs, ensuring that the organization can react quickly and mitigate damage. The plan includes details such as identifying the nature of the incident, containment strategies, eradication of the threat, recovery processes, and post-incident analysis. This structured approach helps organizations minimize the impact of incidents, restore normal operations swiftly, and enhance their overall cybersecurity posture.

While defining the roles of cybersecurity personnel is an important aspect of an incident response plan, it is not the primary purpose. User awareness is critical for preventing incidents but falls outside the scope of actual incident response procedures. Monitoring network traffic is a proactive measure for detecting potential breaches, but it does not address the response to incidents once they have occurred.