Cyberattacks are no longer an “if” but a “when.”
Organizations invest heavily in cybersecurity tools, firewalls, and endpoint detection, yet many still fail miserably when an actual incident occurs. Why? Because incident response isn’t just about having a plan—it’s about execution.
Even the most well-documented response plans can fall apart under real-world pressure. Teams hesitate, miscommunicate, and scramble to contain the damage, leading to prolonged downtime, financial losses, and reputational damage. The hard truth is that most cyber incident responses fail due to three key reasons:
- Not Training the Incident Response Team Regularly
- Not Stress Testing Through Tabletop Exercises
- Not Remediating Gaps Found During Real Incidents or Exercises
In this article, we’ll break down why these failures happen, provide real-world examples, and discuss what you can do to ensure your organization is ready when the inevitable cyberattack occurs.
1. The Training Trap – Why Your Team Isn’t Ready
Cybersecurity threats evolve constantly, as should your incident response team’s skills. Unfortunately, many organizations operate under the assumption that once an incident response (IR) plan is written, it will work as intended during a crisis.
The Reality Check: Having an IR plan doesn’t mean your team can execute it effectively. If your team isn’t trained to act under high-stress conditions, mistakes will happen, including delays, miscommunication, and poor decision-making.
Real-World Failure: During the Maersk Ransomware Attack in 2017, shipping giant Maersk was hit with the NotPetya ransomware attack, which shut down 49,000 endpoints and 1,200 applications across 600 global sites. The attack crippled their operations, forcing them to rebuild their entire IT infrastructure.
Key Issue: Maersk’s teams were not adequately trained to respond to a ransomware incident of this scale—the lack of coordinated response delayed containment, leading to an estimated $300 million in damages.
How to Fix This: Regular Training Drills: Run monthly or quarterly cyber drills to ensure all stakeholders (security teams, executives, legal, PR) are familiar with their roles.
Role-Specific Training: Incident response isn’t just for IT—legal, compliance, HR, and PR teams need training on their roles during a crisis.
Cross-Team Collaboration: Security teams must train alongside non-technical stakeholders to improve coordination.
The Bottom Line is that if your team doesn’t train together regularly, it will not perform well under real-world pressure.
2. The Stress Test You’re Avoiding – Why Tabletop Exercises Matter
A cyber incident response plan that hasn’t been tested is a liability. Tabletop exercises (TTXs) are designed to simulate cyber incidents, helping teams identify weaknesses in a controlled environment. Yet, many organizations either skip them or treat them as a one-time event rather than an ongoing practice.
The Reality Check: Your plan is just a theory until it’s tested. Without live simulation exercises, your team won’t know how communication, decision-making, and technical responses play out under pressure.
Real-World Failure: In the Capital One Data Breach in 2019, Capital One suffered a massive data breach, exposing 100 million customer records. A former Amazon Web Services (AWS) engineer exploited a misconfigured firewall, gaining access to sensitive data stored in the cloud.
Key Issue: Capital One’s security team had incident response protocols in place but had not conducted robust tabletop exercises simulating a cloud-based breach. As a result, the team was slow to detect and contain the breach, leading to reputational damage and regulatory fines.
Related: PreparedEx Podcast: Why Your Cyber Incident Response Will Fail – And How to Fix It
How to Fix This
- Run Tabletop Exercises Quarterly: Regularly simulate ransomware attacks, insider threats, cloud security breaches, and business email compromises (BEC).
- Involve Leadership: Cyber incidents require executive decisions—CEOs, legal teams, and PR must be part of the exercise to practice real-time decision-making.
- Change Variables Each Time: No two cyberattacks are identical. Modify attack vectors, inject new challenges, and simulate external pressures (media, regulators, law enforcement) to create a dynamic experience.
Bottom Line: If your IR plan hasn’t been tested under simulated stress, it will crumble when an actual breach occurs.
3. The Biggest Mistake – Ignoring Lessons Learned
Finding weaknesses in your response plan isn’t a failure—it’s an opportunity to improve. Yet, many organizations make the critical mistake of documenting gaps but never remediating them.
The Reality Check: A cybersecurity breach or a poorly executed exercise is only valuable if you act on the lessons learned. Failing to address identified vulnerabilities means you’re just as vulnerable to the next attack—if not more so.
Real-World Failure: In the Equifax Data Breach in 2017, the breach exposed 147 million customer records, including Social Security numbers. The breach occurred because of an unpatched vulnerability in Apache Struts, a widely used open-source framework.
Key Issue: Equifax knew about the vulnerability but failed to patch it in a timely manner. The company also failed to learn from past security audits that flagged weaknesses in its patch management processes.
How to Fix This
- Track and Prioritize Gaps: After an exercise or real incident, create a remediation plan with deadlines, and assign clear ownership.
- Conduct Post-Mortem Reviews: Hold after-action reviews (AARs) within 48 hours of an incident to assess what worked, what failed, and what needs improvement.
- Audit Fixes Regularly: Ensure identified vulnerabilities are addressed—not just noted in reports. Perform follow-up tests to validate remediation efforts.
Bottom Line: Failing to act on weaknesses means your organization is deliberately choosing to remain vulnerable.
Final Thoughts: Will Your Incident Response Fail?
Your cyber incident response will fail if you:
✅ Don’t train your team regularly.
✅ Don’t stress-test your plan with realistic tabletop and functional exercises.
✅ Don’t fix weaknesses found during simulations or real incidents.
But the good news? You can fix all of this today.
Immediate Actions to Take:
1️⃣ Schedule Your Next Training Session – Start with a cyber drill for your team within the next month.
2️⃣ Run Tabletop Exercises – Choose realistic scenarios and test your response.
3️⃣ Implement a Formal Lessons-Learned Process – Ensure all gaps found are documented, assigned owners, and remediated.
Cyber Resilience Isn’t Optional In cybersecurity. Failing to prepare means preparing to fail. Organizations that train, test, and improve are the ones that survive—and even thrive—after an attack.
The question isn’t if your business will be attacked—it’s whether you’ll be ready when it happens.