Every organisation thinks their incident response plan is solid right up until something actually happens. Then reality hits, the plan is outdated, nobody knows their role, leadership panics, communication collapses, regulators breathe down your neck, and the incident becomes far worse than it needed to be.
If you want an incident response plan that survives first contact with a real attack, you need to understand why most plans fail and what you can do to fix yours before it’s tested under pressure.
Your Plan Is Already Outdated
Threats evolve constantly, your business changes, cloud services get added quietly and, response plans don’t keep up and end up describing a version of the business that no longer exists.
How to fix it:
Review and update your plan every six months. Make sure it reflects your current tech stack, suppliers, cloud environment and actual risks. Align it with NCSC guidance so you’re not building from scratch.
Most of Your Team Hasn’t Read It
A surprising number of people only see the plan for the first time during an incident. That’s a guaranteed failure point.
How to fix it:
Train people properly. Walk through responsibilities. Give teams short, practical summaries they can actually follow at 2 a.m. If a single person holds all the knowledge, you’ve built a single point of failure into your response.
You Don’t Test Anything Under Pressure
Tabletop exercises are better than nothing, but they’re still artificial. Real attacks involve stress, confusion and time pressure, none of which your plan has been tested against.
How to fix it:
Run realistic simulations. Include IT, security, legal, comms and senior leadership. Test different scenarios: ransomware, third-party breaches, insider threats, cloud outages. Find out where the bottlenecks are now, not during the real thing.
Communication Will Fall Apart
People panic. Channels fail. Messages get lost. Decisions get repeated because nobody knows what was agreed. Poor communication turns small incidents into disasters.
How to fix it:
Define clear communication paths. Set backup channels. Decide who handles technical updates, internal messaging and customer-facing statements. In the UK, know exactly when you must notify the ICO under UK GDPR. Timing matters.
You’re Not Prepared to Handle Evidence
If you can’t preserve logs or system images properly, you can’t analyse what happened or support legal action. Many organisations lose critical evidence in the chaos.
How to fix it:
Document how evidence is collected and preserved. Make sure the right access and tools are in place long before an incident occurs.
You’re Ignoring Third-Party Risk
A huge number of breaches start with a supplier. Most plans don’t mention vendors at all.
How to fix it:
Add third-party breach scenarios. Know which suppliers hold sensitive data, who to contact in an emergency and what obligations they have. Check your contracts actually require cooperation during incidents.
Leadership Becomes a Bottleneck
Executives often slow things down with constant update demands, indecision or panic.
How to fix it:
Give leadership a defined role and a structured update schedule. Make approval chains explicit. Include them in simulations so they’re not figuring out their part during an actual breach.
You Haven’t Planned for Legal and Regulatory Fallout
In the UK, failing to follow reporting rules can turn a bad incident into an expensive one.
How to fix it:
Map out your reporting requirements: ICO notification timelines, contractual obligations and customer communication. Have templates ready so you’re not drafting statements in the middle of a crisis.
You Only Focus on Containment, Not Recovery
Stopping the attack is one thing. Getting the business back online is another. Most plans stop halfway.
How to fix it:
Document recovery priorities and dependencies. Know which systems come back first and who owns each part. Test backup restoration regularly so you know your “safety net” actually works.
Final Thoughts
Your incident response plan will fail if it’s a static document collecting dust. It needs to be current, tested and understood by the people who will use it. If you build it around real-world conditions, not theory, you’ll respond faster, prevent preventable damage and stay on the right side of UK regulatory requirements.