Your monitoring tools flag something, and now somebody has to decide how serious it is, who needs to know, and who is in charge of the response. If nobody settled that ahead of time, those decisions get made at the worst possible moment. In this episode, Professor Simon explains why detecting an incident and managing one are two different jobs, and why much of the work of managing an incident happens before the incident ever occurs.

He uses a fictional health care provider, IncidentSecure Inc., from his book as a teaching scenario and walks through its four stages: assessing what it needs, designing a strategy, putting controls in place, and training and improving. Along the way he covers defined roles, classification levels, response procedures, a communication plan, where detection fits among the controls, where a response tends to break, and why practice matters. He closes with four questions you can ask about one type of incident your own organization could realistically face. Because this is audio, the four stages and the four questions are described as he goes, so you can follow along while you walk, drive or work.

In this episode you'll learn:

- Why detecting an incident is not the same as managing one

- The four stages of the fictional program: assess needs, design a strategy, put controls in place, train and improve

- Why defined roles, severity levels, response procedures and a communication plan matter

- How a detection becomes a coordinated response, from classification to who hears about it

- Where a response tends to break: a role nobody owns, a severity nobody agreed on, a message that goes out late or wrong

- Four questions to ask about one type of incident your team could realistically face

- How to explain the work around a detection tool in an interview

▶️ Companion YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/IzMXywJ_GBc

📝 Companion Blog Post: https://professorsimon.com/blog/incident-management-process-before-an-incident

🎧 More Podcast Episodes: https://professorsimon.com/podcast

🧭 Figure out which cybersecurity path fits you: https://careervectors.com

🔗 Resources, blog & more: https://professorsimon.com/links

🌐 Website: https://professorsimon.com

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardsimon

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