Incident Response
Most organizations don't think about incident response until they're inside one — and by then it's too late to negotiate retainer pricing, vet forensics partners, or align with breach counsel. Our 24/7 IR retainer means the call gets answered, the engagement letter is pre-signed, and forensics are dispatched immediately.
Overview
In a breach, the first hour is the only hour that matters.
The Pressure
When a breach hits, the clock starts immediately — for the attacker, the regulators, and your insurer.
- Professionalized adversaries run well-rehearsed playbooks — ransomware-as-a-service operators and state-aligned actors move from access to impact in hours, not days.
- SEC Cybersecurity Disclosure rules require Form 8-K reporting of material incidents within four business days of a materiality determination.
- NYDFS Part 500 mandates 72-hour incident reporting for covered entities, and the proposed HIPAA Security Rule update brings 72-hour requirements to healthcare.
- Cyber-insurance carriers expect retained IR firms on their approved panels and can reduce or dispute coverage when the response is delayed or off-panel.
- State breach-notification laws add their own clocks across every jurisdiction where affected individuals reside.
The Gap
Most organizations don't think about IR until they are already inside an incident — and by then it is too late.
- Procurement during the first hour — contract, panel-acceptance, and credential-vetting all have to happen while the attacker is consolidating access.
- Surge pricing — generic forensics firms charge premium rates during active incidents, and may not be on your insurer's panel at all.
- One playbook for every incident — BEC, ransomware, and state-aligned-actor intrusions each need different investigative playbooks that generalist firms run inconsistently.
- No pre-vetted breach counsel — privilege gets compromised when forensics begins before counsel is engaged and the engagement is structured correctly.
- No environment baseline on file — responders lose hours learning an unfamiliar estate before they can even begin to investigate.
How We Help
Our 24/7 retainer means the call gets answered, the engagement letter is pre-signed, and forensics are dispatched immediately.
- Pre-position pre-signed engagement, environment review on file, and panel-acceptance with major insurers so the first hour is spent investigating, not contracting.
- Cover the full incident lifecycle — ransomware response, BEC unwinding, and forensics — with senior, US-based responders matched to the incident type.
- Run regulator notification across SEC 8-K, NYDFS, OCR, and state breach laws, with pre-rehearsed breach-counsel coordination that preserves privilege.
- Align with your cyber-insurance carrier from the first call to protect coverage and keep the response on-panel.
- Pair with our Breach Retainer, Disaster Recovery, Backup & DR, and SOC practices for the recovery and ongoing-defense work that follows.
The call gets answered, forensics start inside the hour, and your regulators and carrier see a disciplined, on-time response.
Capabilities
What we deliver
Containment
Stop the attacker. Isolate affected systems, kill persistence, lock down access.
Investigation & Forensics
Memory captures, disk imaging, log analysis, timeline reconstruction. Evidence preserved for legal action if needed.
Threat Actor Negotiation
When required, handled with discipline by experienced negotiators — never left to whoever picks up the phone first.
Recovery
Restore operations. Validated clean backups, hardened rebuild paths, monitored re-entry to production.
Stakeholder Coordination
Counsel, insurance broker and carrier, regulators, board, customers, employees — everyone gets the right message at the right time.
Post-Incident Hardening
Root-cause analysis, control gaps closed, monitoring tuned to detect recurrence.
Lessons-Learned & Tabletop
Apply what was learned to the rest of the program. Update the IR plan. Test it again.
If you are under attack, call us now
24/7 breach hotline. Pre-engagement retainers also available.