Why You Must Think Like Emergency Planners
Imagine it’s 1:00 a.m. The rain’s been steady, but you’re asleep. Somewhere upstream, the river is rising—fast. The National Weather Service is blasting alerts. But the local evacuation order doesn’t come until hours later. By then, it’s too late for many. That’s exactly what happened in Texas’s Kerr County this past July, when the Guadalupe River swelled 33 feet in five hours. Warnings were issued, but no one acted until the damage was done.
As a business leader, you may not think of yourself as an emergency responder. But when it comes to cybersecurity and data breaches, that’s exactly what you are.
Security Incidents Are the New Natural Disasters
We’ve entered a world where digital floods hit faster than we can respond. Hackers don’t give you a heads-up. There’s no weather app for ransomware or business email compromise. But the fallout? It’s just as devastating as a real flood—maybe worse. Financial loss, regulatory fines, reputational damage, lawsuits, insurance battles—it all comes crashing down if you’re not ready.
When we think about disaster readiness in physical terms, we understand the steps: build levees, issue alerts, train first responders, hold drills. The same mindset applies to digital threats.
The first step isn’t technology. It’s a plan.
You Already Have the Alerts—Now You Need the Action Plan
Just like the National Weather Service, your systems are probably firing off alerts already. Endpoint detection, firewall logs, SIEM dashboards, threat intel feeds. You’re swimming in signals. The problem? Those alerts aren’t enough, just like they weren’t in Kerr County.
What saves lives (and businesses) is a playbook. A clear, current, and practiced plan for what to do after the alert.
That’s where incident response playbooks come in. And most businesses? They either don’t have them, or the ones they do have are collecting dust in a PDF graveyard somewhere on SharePoint.
Playbooks Aren’t Optional. They’re Survival Kits.
Think of your incident response playbook like your emergency bag. It tells you:
- Who’s in charge of the response?
- How do we contain the damage?
- When do we notify our insurance provider?
- What do we tell regulators, clients, and the press?
- What evidence needs to be gathered to avoid liability?
Without it, everyone’s scrambling. Legal is calling IT. Marketing’s unsure what to say. The board wants answers. And while you’re figuring it out, the damage keeps spreading.
In a crisis, confusion is the enemy. Speed is your only friend. And that’s why your playbook has to be ready before the breach—not built during it.
Up-to-Date Playbooks Are a Your Imperative
Here’s the deal: You can’t delegate this. You can’t just toss the “incident response” binder to IT and hope for the best. Because when a breach happens, it’s your name on the press release. It’s your signature on the SEC disclosure. It’s your responsibility to explain to investors what happened—and why you didn’t see it coming.
An outdated playbook is as bad as no playbook. If your plan doesn’t reflect your current systems, people, vendors, and processes, then you’re planning for a business you no longer are.
CFOs, in particular, need to realize that incident response isn’t just about stopping hackers. It’s about minimizing financial risk. Your cost containment plan starts with response. Because every minute wasted is another zero added to the loss column.
Tabletop Exercises: Your Fire Drill for Cyber Incidents
This isn’t just about documentation—it’s about rehearsal. When’s the last time you ran a tabletop exercise? A simulated breach where your team walked through the steps?
No, not a “review.” A real simulation. With a timer. With surprise elements. With everyone sweating a little.
If your team hasn’t practiced, they won’t perform. You wouldn’t trust a fire crew that never held a hose. Don’t trust your response team to magically execute a flawless play without rehearsal.
Think in Terms of Liability, Not Just Downtime
Here’s the real reason to care: in today’s legal climate, what you did before the breach determines how you're judged after the breach.
Regulators, insurance carriers, and civil attorneys don’t care if you had great tech. They care whether you had a program—and followed it.
Did you:
- Have a documented response plan?
- Train your staff?
- Review and update that plan quarterly?
- Conduct a formal incident post-mortem?
If the answer to those questions is “no,” you’re likely to be deemed negligent. That’s where class-action suits come from. That’s where claims get denied. That’s where reputations get shredded.
Your Incident Response Playbook Is a Business Asset
Let’s flip the script. Imagine a breach happens—and you nail it. Your team responds calmly, fast. You notify the right stakeholders. You preserve the evidence. You limit the exposure. You even turn the event into a case study in risk management.
What’s that worth?
Everything.
Because now your clients trust you more. Your board has confidence. Your regulators see a model for other businesses to follow.
Your incident response playbook didn’t just save you—it elevated you.
Final Thought: The Alerts Are Already Ringing
Just like the rain that hit Kerr County, the digital storm is already building. Alerts are coming in. Some of them are already on your phone, in your inbox, buried in logs.
The question is not whether you’ll be alerted.
The question is: Will your business move fast enough to survive?
And that starts with having a playbook that works.
If you're reading this, let this be your wake-up call. Don’t wait until the breach. Don’t assume someone else has it handled.
You are the floodplain manager now. It’s your job to ask the hard questions and demand real answers:
- Where is our playbook?
- Is it current?
- Has it been tested?
- Who owns the response?
- And what happens when you’re the one being called at 1 a.m.?
