Which describes the purpose of incident response planning?

• A. Schedule office parties after incidents.
• B. Increase network bandwidth.
• C. Identify, respond to, and recover from security incidents to minimize impact.
• D. Replace security staff with automated tools.

Answer: (C)

Incident response planning is about preparing for security incidents and handling them in a coordinated, repeatable way to minimize the impact on the organization. The goal is to quickly identify incidents, respond effectively, and recover operations with minimum downtime, while preserving evidence and maintaining communication with stakeholders.

A solid incident response plan defines who does what, when to escalate, and how to communicate across teams and leadership. It guides the full incident lifecycle: preparation, detection and analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned. By following these steps, an organization can limit damage, restore normal services faster, and improve defenses based on what was learned from the incident.

For example, in a ransomware event, the plan would specify the incident response team roles, how to isolate affected systems to prevent spread, steps to recover data from backups, and how to inform relevant parties, all while keeping detailed records for forensics and compliance.

Other options miss the point: scheduling office parties after incidents does nothing to address security threats, increasing network bandwidth does not manage the incident itself, and replacing staff with automated tools ignores the need for coordinated human judgment and governance during a security event.