Travelex, a global currency exchange firm, fell victim to a ransomware attack in late 2019 that shut down its systems for over 2 weeks and cost an estimated $25M.

This is the story of a financial institution that wasn’t prepared and paid dearly for the delay of detection and response.

Learning from history, let’s explore why incident response matters, what it actually involves, and how it determines whether a company survives a cyber incident,

What is Incident Response?

Incident response (IR) is a process defined by an organization to prepare for, detect, contain, and recover from cyber incidents.

The goal is straightforward:

• Prevent cyberattacks before they occur
• Minimize their damage when they inevitably do

The IR process is not just a document to follow, but a full framework that leads to correct decision-making. It defines who, when, and how to act during risky situations, where time isn’t a luxury.

The incident response lifecycle typically includes:

• Preparation
• Detection and identification
• Containment
• Eradication and recovery
• Learning lessons

Each phase requires specific tools and strategies. For detection, a SIEM aggregates logs and detects anomalies in real time. A CTI platform, like Defendis, provides context on the attacks, identifies IOCs to watch for, and informs about recent and common threats targeting the region.

How Incident Response Works: Questions for Guidance

In real incident response teams, questions are constantly used to guide the process. Not assumptions, not jumping-to-conclusions, but precise and detailed queries to make an effective plan. This helps the team stay focused on priorities during high-pressure situations.

Some of the common questions would include:

• What are the organization’s critical assets?
• How do we determine protection priorities?
• What tools and resources must be ready?
• How do we detect that an incident is happening?
• How severe is the incident?
• Who needs to be informed, and when?
• How do we contain it to prevent further damage?
• What evidence must be preserved?
• Do we need external experts or legal involvement?
• How do we verify that systems are safe before returning to normal operations?
• What worked and what didn’t during the response?
• How can we prevent this next time?

Without these answers, organizations are forced to make instant plans during the attack and risk ignoring critical steps. The stress of being unprepared leads to delays and long-term damage, just like the Travelex story.

Why You Need an Incident Response Plan

As cyber threats become more sophisticated and targeted, companies are expected to raise the bar for incident response.

To stay ahead, an incident response plan should enable organizations to:

• Detect incidents earlier
• Act faster with fewer mistakes
• Reduce financial and reputational impact
• Communicate clearly with the concerned parties
• Recover calmly, with confidence instead of uncertainty and stress

The consequences of not having an incident response

Without an incident response plan, companies don't just face a security breach; they face a full-blown crisis.

• Extended downtime and higher financial losses
• Regulatory fines and legal liability
• Permanent reputation damage and lost customer trust
• Ineffective, panicked response that makes things worse
• Potential business closure

These are documented outcomes from real companies that faced incidents unprepared. They’re also the direct reasons for high-cost breaches.

Real-world examples of a successful Incident Response plan:

Having covered the theory, let's look at real examples. Unlike Travelex, many companies proved the strength of security planning:

GitHub and the largest DDoS attack

In 2018, GitHub was hit by one of the largest DDoS attacks, reaching 1.3 Tbps and 126.9 million packets per second. The attack used certain misconfigured servers to amplify traffic without needing any botnet participation.

Fortunately, the predefined strategy and the DDoS protection service that was in place saved the day and ended the attack in about 20 minutes.

They also mentioned that their next step is to automate DDoS mitigation, measure response times, and reduce the recovery period. A perfect example of the learning phase and immediate action to upgrade the resilience of a huge infrastructure.

Microsoft, the expertise of ransomware incident response

Like any other big name, Microsoft faces continuous attack attempts and security challenges. Their experience has advanced, along with their reaction tools and incident response strategy, both for Microsoft and for other organizations.

DART, the Microsoft Incident Response team, has published a documented case study about ransomware incident response. Using internal product groups and external strategic partnerships, DART investigates and remediates ransomware attacks, from initial access to the impact study and learning.

This detailed document serves as a model of a well-organized IR plan.

Cloudflare’s response for a clean, no-damage breach

Several third-party vendors of Cloudflare had been compromised, which put Cloudflare’s infrastructure directly at risk. Yet, they successfully prevented any damage.

Once the external vendors were breached, Cloudflare treated it as a personal incident and started investigating. They immediately checked their own systems, reviewed logs, rotated API tokens as a precaution, and publicly documented what happened and how they ensured no customer data was accessed.

The main phases this story highlights are the early reaction, strong threat containment, and precise documentation. All of which are foundations of incident response maturity.

Final Thoughts

The difference between $25M in damages and no damage at all is not the attack itself, but the response.

Incident response plans ensure readiness, not for what may happen, but for what will happen. Every organization goes through attacks, surely, but what matters is what happens next. Does the team freak out, improvise, and lose control? Or do you follow a strong plan that's already in place?

In your company:

• Enable protection tools continuously like GitHub
• Follow a precise and organized plan like Microsoft
• Act early and protect your customers like Cloudflare
• Invest in your incident response at every chance