2025-05-30 • 5 min read
In many organizations, incident response plans are designed around alerts and technology instead of people and process. This creates an imbalance. When incidents occur, the team may overreact without context or underreact because they are overwhelmed.
Here is what that imbalance looks like in real environments, and how to correct it.
A common pattern is this: The SOC has dashboards full of alerts from EDR, firewall, and SIEM tools. The data is plentiful, but the team struggles to decide what to act on, how to triage, or what success should look like.
Without clear thresholds, escalation paths, or a baseline understanding of what is normal, each alert requires interpretation. That leads to hesitation, inconsistency, and alert fatigue.
To fix this:
In the middle of an incident, teams often pause to ask who owns what. Who is responsible for containment? Who contacts legal? Who drafts communication to affected customers?
When these roles are unclear, response efforts lose momentum. Threats continue to spread while people try to navigate the org chart.
To fix this:
In smaller environments, the same individual often handles detection, investigation, containment, and cleanup. This works until that person is unavailable or overloaded.
Even a highly skilled responder cannot cover every angle alone. Response should be a team capability, not a solo function.
To fix this:
An effective response program balances detection with decision-making, and technology with clearly defined roles. The goal is not to react faster to every alert. The goal is to react with clarity, consistency, and the right context.
If your team is looking to build a response plan that holds up under real pressure, contact us. We help organizations prepare before the incident happens.