Webinar: Incident Response - Rehearsing the First Hour

FREE Webinar: Incident Response – Rehearsing the First Hour

Know who to contact. Understand your responsibilities. Practise your response.

Join Secarma for a free, practical webinar exploring how to prepare for the first hour of a cyber incident, rehearse important decisions and help your team respond with confidence.

If your organisation discovered a cyber incident today, would everyone know what to do first?

The early stages of an incident can involve incomplete information, competing priorities and decisions that need to be made quickly. Knowing who to contact, who has authority to act and how to bring the right people together can make a real difference.

Having a documented incident response plan is important, but understanding how it works in practice is just as valuable.

In this webinar, we'll explore how organisations can rehearse those first steps, clarify responsibilities and identify potential gaps before a real incident puts their plans to the test.

With the Christmas period approaching, we'll also consider what happens when key people are unavailable and how to make sure the right arrangements are in place.

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What We'll Cover

We'll explore the decisions, responsibilities and practical preparations that shape an organisation's initial response to a cyber incident.

Using the first hour as our focus, we'll cover:

• Recognising and escalating an incident: Understanding when an issue needs to be treated as a potential cyber incident and who should be informed.
• Making the first decisions: Considering what teams may need to decide when information is incomplete and the situation is still developing.
• Clarifying roles and responsibilities: Identifying who needs to be involved, who has authority to act and how decisions should be coordinated.
• Preparing communication arrangements: Keeping contact lists, escalation routes and alternative communication methods ready to use.
• Working with external support: Coordinating internal teams, outsourced IT providers and specialist incident response support.
• Balancing business priorities: Understanding the importance of containment, evidence preservation and business continuity during the initial response.
• Rehearsing with tabletop exercises: How a practical scenario can help teams test their response plan, work through decisions and identify areas for improvement.
• Preparing for the holiday period: Checking out-of-hours support, delegated authority and important contacts before key people take time away.

Turning Your Incident Response Plan into Practice

It's not just about having an incident response plan. It's about knowing how your team will put it into action.

A written plan can outline responsibilities and processes, but when an incident happens, people need to know how those arrangements work together.

Who makes the first call? Who decides whether systems should be isolated? How do you contact key people if your usual communication channels are unavailable? And what happens if the person responsible for making a decision is on holiday?

These are the kinds of questions that can be explored through incident response rehearsals and tabletop exercises.

We'll discuss how organisations can use realistic scenarios to bring technical teams, business leaders and supporting functions together, helping everyone understand their role before an incident occurs.

Our aim is to help you identify practical improvements that make your response plans more useful, manageable and effective.

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Who Should Attend?

This free webinar is ideal for anyone involved in preparing for, managing or supporting an organisation's response to cyber incidents, including:

• IT managers and technical teams
• Information security and cybersecurity professionals
• Business owners and senior leaders
• Risk, compliance and governance teams
• Business continuity and operational managers
• Communications, HR and legal professionals who may support incident response
• Anyone coordinating incident response with external IT providers or specialist suppliers

Whether you already have an established incident response plan or are starting to develop one, this session will help you understand what your organisation should be preparing and rehearsing.

You don't need to be a technical specialist. Effective incident response involves people across the business, and we'll keep the discussion practical and accessible.

What You'll Take Away

By the end of the webinar, you'll have:

• A clearer understanding of the decisions organisations may face during the first hour of a cyber incident.
• Practical guidance on reviewing escalation routes, contacts and decision-making responsibilities.
• A better understanding of how technical teams, business leaders and external providers can work together.
• Insight into balancing containment, evidence preservation and business continuity.
• Ideas for using tabletop exercises to rehearse your incident response arrangements.
• Greater confidence in identifying gaps in your existing response plan.
• A focused set of checks to consider before the Christmas period, particularly around out-of-hours cover and key personnel availability.

Why Learn with Secarma?

At Secarma, we believe cybersecurity education should be practical, understandable and accessible.

Through our advisory, certification and technical testing services, we help organisations understand security risks, strengthen their resilience and make informed decisions about protecting their business.

Incident response preparation is an important part of that approach. Understanding how people, processes and technology work together can help organisations respond more effectively when an incident occurs.

We support organisations with practical cybersecurity guidance, including incident response planning and tabletop exercises that help teams explore realistic scenarios and identify opportunities for improvement.

We share our knowledge through free webinars, training and educational resources because we believe that helping organisations prepare and build confidence is an important part of improving cybersecurity.

Join Our FREE Incident Response Webinar

With the Christmas period approaching, now is a useful time to review your incident response arrangements and make sure everyone understands what to do if something happens while key people are away.

Join us on Wednesday 18 November 2026 at 2pm GMT for a practical discussion about rehearsing the first hour of a cyber incident.

Whether you're reviewing an existing response plan or preparing your organisation's first tabletop exercise, we'll help you understand the decisions, contacts and responsibilities worth testing.

There's no cost to attend. Simply register to secure your place.

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