Incident Response Preparedness: The Role of Third-Party Partners and Retainers
Part 4
Overview | Detection Engineering | Technical IR Readiness | 3rd Party Vendor Management | 3rd Party Partners & Retainers | Managing Executives in a Crisis | Reporting Readiness | Final Thoughts
When an incident happens, the clock starts ticking. Very few organizations have every skillset they need in-house to manage containment, eradication, recovery, forensics, legal, regulatory, and communications simultaneously. That’s why third-party partners and retainers are critical. This part is going to seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be and its always worth putting the time in before an incident happens.
The recently released NIST SP 800-61 Rev.3 makes this clearer than ever. The old lifecycle (Preparation → Detection & Analysis → Containment, Eradication & Recovery → Post-Incident Activity) has been realigned to better match the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) functions:
Govern
Identify
Protect
Detect
Respond/Recover
This shift emphasizes that incident response isn’t a siloed process, it’s deeply connected to enterprise risk management, governance, and resilience. Each phase now highlights activities that are best handled through a mix of internal readiness and external expertise on retainer.
1. Govern / Identify / Protect – Building the Foundation
In the new version of NIST 800-61, “Preparation” has been reframed into Govern/Identify/Protect, underscoring that incident readiness starts well before detection. It’s about embedding security into governance and risk management, not just technical playbooks.
Key activities include:
Governance & Documentation – Someone must own policies, escalation procedures, and communications protocols. Without this, confusion reigns during a crisis.
Program Definition & Coordination – Clearly defined requirements, thresholds, and responsibilities across security, IT, legal, and business leadership.
Asset Centralization – A single source of truth for systems, applications, SaaS providers, and third-party vendors.
Risk Appetite & Tolerance – The organization must decide what level of disruption or data loss it can accept. These decisions cannot be made in the middle of an incident.
Vendor Visibility – A continuously updated inventory of third-party vendors, their access rights, and their criticality to operations.
Playbooks – Scenario-based gameplans (e.g., ransomware, insider threat, cloud compromise) that can be executed quickly.
If these aren’t built in-house, organizations must work with external advisors who can stand up and maintain these capabilities. Otherwise, when the inevitable happens, the response will be fragmented. At CipherNorth we can help you determine what you need now versus what can wait.
2. Detect & Identify - Continuous and Business-as-Usual
The former “Detection & Analysis” stage is now split into Detect and Identify in NIST CST, underscoring that detection must be ongoing, while identification is about analysis and classification once something suspicious emerges.
Key requirements here:
Engineering & Security Teams – Skilled staff who can operate monitoring tools and triage alerts.
Defined Controls – Network segmentation, logging, monitoring, and EDR to minimize blast radius and provide visibility.
Identity Expertise – Since identity is a perimeter, you need specialists who understand Active Directory (Entra), Azure AD, Okta, and other IAM systems. If you have a customer facing product this brings other technology in like ForgeRock, Auth0, Cognito, etc.
Cloud & SaaS Specialists – Few organizations have deep expertise across Azure, AWS, GCP, and dozens of SaaS applications that are dedicated to security. Many times these are going to be your developers and engineers.
This is “business as usual.” These practices should be operational before an incident. Yet for many SMBs and even mid-size enterprises, these capabilities are not part of a dedicated security team. They are shared amongst the teams that are building the product. There will be work stoppage during an incident because these teams are going to become security engineers. Are they ready?
3. Respond & Recover – The Crucible of an Incident
The old Containment, Eradication, and Recovery stage is now Respond/Recover in Rev.3, and it’s where external partners become indispensable.
Two paths must operate in parallel:
Path A: Recovery – Restoring systems, applications, and business operations. This must be done carefully to ensure attackers aren’t still present.
Path B: Investigation – Forensics and evidence collection to understand what the attacker accessed, exfiltrated, deleted, or encrypted. This evidence is vital for litigation, regulatory inquiries, and insurance claims.
These two paths must remain in lockstep. If recovery teams get too far ahead, evidence can be lost; if forensics lags behind, the business remains offline longer than necessary.
External support required here often includes:
Incident Response Vendors – Often time firms like Microsoft DART, Mandiant (Google), or Kroll are expected, due to name recognition, in order to provide validation and assurance that eradication efforts are complete. You will want a retainer in place for these. However, often times having a more agile partner is better. Especially if you can use that same partner for adversary simulations and testing so that they know your environment. One of those partners I work with is Stacktitan.
Legal Counsel – Your internal attorney may be strong in contracts or employment law, but incident response requires specialists who understand privilege, discovery, and regulatory notification. Many organizations rely on external counsel to engage forensics firms under privilege. CipherNorth partners with attorneys to provide training on attorney client privilege so that your organization understands the nuance before an incident happens.
Cyber Insurance – Many policies dictate how vendors and counsel must be engaged. Some require you to route engagement through the insurer, while others simply require notification.
This phase is also where the majority of cost and time are incurred. Managing vendors, retainers, contracts, and communications is a heavy burden, one that must be pre-planned. One of CipherNorth’s core services is being this coordinator on retainer for you if this ever happens.
4. Communicate and Coordinate - The Human Factor
Technical containment is only half the battle. Organizations must also manage:
Internal Communiations - No one should use the ‘B’ word (breach) in writing anywhere. There is way more to an incident than that, and the nuance matters, especially in legal speak.
Customer Notifications - Are you legally required to notify? If so, when and how (email vs. mail)?
Regulatory Notifications - Requirements vary by state, industry, and geography.
Attorney General & Regulator Engagement - Certain jurisdictions mandate direct reporting and each state is different based on how the incident occurred and is classified.
Investor & Media Communications - Poorly managed disclosures can cause more damage than the breach itself.
Attorney-Client Privilege - Deciding what should be written, what should be verbal, and how communications are handled (e.g., should counsel be copied to ensure privilege?).
Who speaks for the company? How often should updates be provided? These decisions can’t be improvised during a breach, they must be planned in advance. CipherNorth can help you build a framework for this. I will dig into this area more in the next post on executive management within an incident.
5. Post-Incident (Identify) - Learning and Maturing
What was previously “Post-Incident Activity” is now wrapped under Identify in Rev.3, emphasizing that incidents must feed back into risk management and governance.
After every incident, organizations should:
Document lessons learned.
Update playbooks, retainers, and policies.
Reassess risk appetite and tolerance.
Reevaluate vendors, insurance, and communications strategies.
An incident forces leadership to confront the true cost of cybersecurity. It’s not about stopping every breach, that’s impossible. It’s about responding well when it happens.
Key Takeaway:
NIST SP 800-61 Rev.3’s alignment with the NIST CSF highlights that incident response is no longer just a technical firefight. it’s a governance and resilience exercise. Most organizations need external retainers, technical, legal, investigative, and communications, to succeed. Those who plan, document, and align vendors before the crisis will recover faster, protect reputation, and reduce long-term costs. If this is something you are need help in, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.