Is Your Cyber Incident Response Plan Ready for Takeoff?

Anyone who travels regularly by air knows the drill. The very first thing we’re told to do, even before the plane leaves the ground? Pay attention to the pre-flight safety instructions.

It’s a routine drill. One we’ve seen dozens of times. But it exists for a reason. When something goes wrong, people need to know exactly what to do. No improvisation. No guesswork. Just clear, practiced responses.

Now ask yourself, when it comes to your organisation’s cyber security, do your teams have that same level of readiness?

We all understand the importance of having an incident response plan. Many organisations do a great job of documenting procedures, assigning roles, and outlining the steps to take when the inevitable cyber incident strikes. But too often, those plans live in documents that haven’t seen the light of day in months, or even years.

The harsh reality? The first-time many businesses test their incident response plan is during an actual cyberattack. And in that high-stakes moment, with pressure mounting, reputations on the line, and financial loss looming, it becomes painfully clear that the plan, however well-crafted, may not be enough. Teams may forget key steps, struggle with communication, or fail to consult the plan entirely. In the chaos, structure can fall apart quickly.

So, how do you truly know if your incident response capabilities are effective?

The answer lies in testing, training, and continuous refinement. And it all starts with building familiarity and confidence, long before a real incident occurs.

Barefoot Cyber helps our clients move beyond simply having a plan to knowing their plan works under pressure. Here’s how we do it:

1. Tabletop Exercises: Build Confidence in a Safe Environment

We start with structured tabletop exercises. These are scenario-based discussions that bring key stakeholders together. IT, legal, compliance, comms, and executive leadership and walk them through a simulated cyber incident. There’s no technical execution at this stage. It’s about decision-making, communication flow, escalation paths, and understanding roles.

These sessions help identify confusion, gaps in the plan, or differences in expectation between teams. Crucially, they foster alignment and shared awareness in a low-stakes setting.

2. Technical Simulations: Put Systems to the Test

Once teams are comfortable with the plan, we move to more technical simulations. This might involve blue team exercises where your defenders are tested against realistic attack scenarios—phishing emails, malware infections, or insider threats. These exercises are typically contained and controlled but are designed to stress your detection and response workflows.

This phase reveals how well your tools, processes, and personnel hold up under time pressure and technical complexity.

3. Red Team Assessments: Simulate Real-World Adversaries

Finally, for organisations ready to go deeper, we offer red team assessments. Simulations that closely mimic real-world cyberattacks. These engagements are designed to emulate the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of actual threat actors. Our red team will attempt to breach your environment, move laterally across systems, escalate privileges, and access sensitive data, just like a real attacker would.

The goal? To expose blind spots and test not just your systems and tools, but your people and processes under real-world conditions.

Red team exercises provide unparalleled insight into how your organisation would actually perform during a breach, and how quickly your team can detect, contain, and respond.

Your Plan Isn’t Ready Until It’s Tested

Cybersecurity isn’t just about writing plans, it’s about proving they work. In aviation, we don’t wait for an engine failure to see if people remember the safety briefing. We train. We test. We rehearse.

The same mindset needs to apply to cyber defence.

Don't wait for a crisis to discover your weak points.