Cybersecurity and data privacy incidents are a disruptive and often traumatizing fact of life for businesses today. These events can be fraught with tension, anxiety, and urgency, involve large sums of money and have a significant negative impact on key operations. Even mundane cybersecurity incidents can tie up an organization’s IT staff or vendor for days. They can cause multiple challenges for sales and operations teams and impact the organization’s brand. And they can cause serious consternation for C-Suite executives. But what role should and does a board of directors play in a cybersecurity incident? How involved should a board of directors be in a cybersecurity incident? When should they be brought in? Considering these questions before suffering a cyber-attack can bolster your organization’s resiliency. To answer these questions effectively, consider the following stages of incident response and examine the board’s involvement in each: preparation, response and post-mortem activities.

Preparation for an Incident

It is common to hear that cybersecurity incidents are a matter of when, not if. Every organization should—and many are legally required to—take steps to prepare for cybersecurity incidents. The quality of the preparation often has a direct impact on an organization’s ability to successfully navigate and mitigate a cyber-attack when it occurs.