Incident Response Playbooks for Security Teams

Incident response (IR) playbooks are practical guides that tell your team what to do when a security event happens. They help speed up actions, keep responses consistent, and reduce errors when pressure is high. A good playbook also makes it easier to involve others, from IT to communications, without guessing the next step.

What makes a helpful playbook? It should be clear, concise, and repeatable. It outlines the incident types you expect, who does what, how to communicate, and how to move from containment to recovery. It also includes templates for status updates and post-incident reviews, so learning happens quickly after events.

What to include

  • Scope and incident types (phishing, malware, data breach, outage)
  • Roles and contact list (on-call engineers, legal, PR)
  • Decision points and escalation routes
  • Step-by-step actions for each type
  • Evidence handling, logging, and chain of custody
  • Internal and external communications plan
  • Containment, eradication, and recovery steps
  • Post-incident review and metrics

How to build them

  • Start with a few core incident types relevant to your environment
  • Write steps in plain language, using short, actionable items
  • Create runbooks or checklists for tool use and procedures
  • Assign roles with a simple RACI or on-call mapping
  • Include templates for incident reports, emails, and executive summaries
  • Review and test every quarter; update after drills or real events

Example structure

  • Overview and scope
  • Incident types (with a short flow for each)
  • Roles and runbooks
  • Communication templates
  • Evidence and logging guidelines
  • Recovery steps and verification
  • Post-incident activities and sign-off

Tabletop exercises help teams practice without risking systems. Run through a simulated incident, track decision times, and refine the playbooks based on lessons learned. Keep playbooks lightweight enough to be used in the first hours of an incident, but robust enough to support a full investigation.

Maintenance matters. Assign a owner, review dates, and a version history. If a new threat emerges or tooling changes, update the relevant playbooks and runbooks. Simple, tested playbooks are more valuable than long, outdated documents.

Key Takeaways

  • Build clear, repeatable steps for common incident types.
  • Include roles, contacts, templates, and evidence handling in every playbook.
  • Regularly test and update your playbooks to stay ready.