What is the main purpose of incident response plans?

The main purpose of incident response plans is to respond effectively to security breaches. These plans provide a systematic approach for responding to and managing security incidents, ensuring that organizations can detect, respond to, and recover from incidents promptly and efficiently. By establishing clear procedures, roles, and responsibilities, incident response plans help ensure that any security breach is handled in a manner that minimizes damage, reduces recovery time, and lessens impact on the organization's operations and reputation.

While mitigating risks from threats, preventing data loss, and designing new systems are important considerations in an organization’s overall security strategy, they do not directly encapsulate the purpose of an incident response plan. The primary focus is on the organization's preparedness and ability to manage and recover from breaches that have already occurred. This proactive planning helps ensure that when an incident arises, the organization can act swiftly and confidently to contain and remediate the situation.