Conversations about cyber security tend to revolve around prevention. Indeed, firewalls, endpoint protection software, monitoring solutions, and multi-factor authentication all go hand in hand in reducing the risk of cyber attacks. Nonetheless, the modern threat environment requires more than good defences. According to the Annual Cyber Threat Report 2024–25, more than 84,700 cyber crime reports were filed during the past financial year, translating to one report every 6 minutes. In addition, the number of cyber security incidents handled by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has increased by 11%.
No business can guarantee an unbreachable defence system. Given that cyber threats keep evolving, preparedness plays the same significant role as prevention does now. That is why any business needs not only an incident response policy but also proven procedures that allow teams to act efficiently when the moment comes.
Why Prepare for a Cyber Incident?
Cyber incidents can affect not only your IT systems but also your operations, reputation, finances, and legal position. While most businesses focus on developing their cyber security prevention measures, few prepare to handle incidents properly.
Strong incident response planning is not just about technical recovery. It also supports:
- Executive decision-making and internal and external communication
- Meeting notification obligations under the Cyber Security Act and the Privacy Act. This is critical, and getting it wrong carries real legal exposure
- Meeting insurance obligations, so a claim isn’t jeopardised by a missed condition or timeframe
- Business continuity – minimising impact and getting back to business as usual as quickly as possible
- Maintaining customer and stakeholder trust
Start with a Risk Assessment
One of the biggest mistakes an organisation can make is to dive headfirst into implementing technical solutions when the risk posture is still unclear. The first step towards improvement is a risk assessment.
A well-scoped assessment helps organisations:
- Identify vulnerabilities across systems and processes
- Understand gaps in security controls
- Prioritise investments based on business impact
- Reduce unnecessary ‘white noise’ from low-priority findings
This step matters because risk isn’t uniform across businesses. A data protection risk might be a minor problem for a construction company. Still, for an NDIS or healthcare provider handling sensitive client records, the same risk could mean exposure to regulatory action, loss of accreditation, or real harm to vulnerable people. Another important element is understanding what assets need protecting in the first place, so risks don’t go unseen.
Testing our Controls
Once remediation is underway, penetration testing adds another layer of validation. Risk assessment finds and prioritises the risks. Remediation deals with them. Pen testing then checks whether those controls actually hold up against a simulated attack.
Penetration testing can help organisations:
- Confirm whether existing controls actually hold up
- Uncover any exploitable weaknesses that remediation missed
- Test both external and internal attack surfaces
- Give evidence that our controls are working
- Flag any new gaps to feed into the next round of remediation
Pen testing is most useful once you know where you stand. Run one blind, without a risk assessment behind you, you’ll end up with a list of findings with no sense of which ones actually matter to your business.
Build a Plan
One of the most overlooked areas of any cyber security program is translating the findings of an assessment into an action plan. The recommendations tend to remain static documents that are rarely acted on.
A more effective approach is to build a dynamic 90-day roadmap that breaks improvements into manageable stages.
This roadmap should:
- Prioritise findings by severity and business impact
- Group issues into practical themes
- Create achievable milestones
- Provide visibility for leadership teams
For example:
- The first 30 days may focus on multi-factor authentication, privileged access controls, and critical vulnerabilities.
- The next 60 days may address patch management, backups, and monitoring improvements.
- By 90 days, organisations should begin validating processes through incident response exercises and policy testing.
Breaking improvements into smaller phases helps reduce team overwhelm while maintaining momentum and accountability.
Develop an Incident Response Plan
An effective incident response framework should include two distinct layers: the policy and the practical response plan.
The incident response policy defines the organisation’s overall approach, governance, and responsibilities. It explains the ‘why’ and ‘what’ behind the response process.
The incident response plan focuses on the operational ‘how’. It outlines the specific actions teams should take during a cyber event.
Key elements of a strong incident response plan include:
- Defined roles and responsibilities
- Executive escalation pathways
- Communication procedures
- Legal and regulatory considerations
- Evidence handling and forensic requirements
- Business continuity and recovery processes
Put the Plan into Practice with Tabletop Exercises
The value of any cyber incident response plan lies in its efficacy during the actual situation. For this reason, tabletop exercises have been gaining increasing importance in cyber resilience plans.
Tabletop exercises are simulation drills that test the team’s response in a high-pressure environment. They focus more on communication than on technical skills.
Scenarios may include:
- Ransomware attacks
- Phishing campaigns
- Third-party breaches
- Insider threats
- Business email compromise
- Data leakage incidents
A good tabletop exercise will include the technical team, executives, communicators, lawyers, and operators. It aims at identifying gaps in processes before an actual incident occurs.
The most important part of the exercise will be the after-the-event ‘hotwash’, during which participants can review lessons learned and identify potential improvements. This will help the organisation develop their ‘muscle memory.’
Make Cyber Incident Response an Ongoing Process
The process of preparation, testing, and constant improvements makes the company resilient to cyber threats. The mere existence of a policy does not guarantee it is sufficient to protect an enterprise from cyber threats. There should be a plan of action, testing processes, communication channels, and alignment of leaders.
With the help of risk assessment, targeted testing, a roadmap, an incident response plan, tabletop exercises, and baselines, including the Essential Eight, the companies will have the opportunity to become resilient rather than adopt a reactive security approach.
Rodin is a security-focused managed service provider that helps organisations build a trusted, secure IT infrastructure for business success. Contact us today.
