Creating an Incident Response Policy

Incident Response Series Overview

This article is part of our Incident Response Series, created to help Australian small and medium businesses (SMBs) build confidence and compliance around cybersecurity readiness.

Part 1: What Is Incident Response and Why It Starts Before a Cyber Incident explains how proactive planning and frameworks like NIST CSF and SMB1001:2026 form the foundation of cyber resilience.

Part 2: Creating an Incident Response Policy explores how to define your business’s intent, authority, and responsibilities in partnership with your Managed Service Provider (MSP).

Part 3: Creating an Incident Response Plan (this article) shows how to turn that intent into coordinated action by defining roles, response procedures, and continuous improvement.

Together, these three articles help ensure your business is ready to respond, recover, and grow stronger after any cybersecurity event.

Incident Response policy

A cyber incident can happen at any time. It could simply be from a staff member clicking a phishing link, to a ransomware attack locking up critical files.

For small and medium businesses, responding quickly and confidently starts long before the crisis. It begins with an Incident Response Policy – a clear statement of intent that sets the tone for how your organisation and your Managed Service Provider (MSP) will prepare for, manage, and recover from cybersecurity incidents.

Why Your Business Needs a Policy

An Incident Response Policy defines the “why” and “who” behind your approach to cybersecurity. It gives your MSP the authority to act on your behalf when an incident occurs and ensures your team knows what to expect.

Without it, response efforts can become unclear or delayed, especially in smaller organisations where IT, leadership, and admin roles often overlap.

A strong policy provides:

• Authority & Accountability | Clarify who can make decisions and when your MSP should step in.
• Alignment | Ensure your business leaders and MSP are working from the same playbook.
• Governance | Formalise your commitment to responsible cybersecurity management.
• Compliance | Satisfy requirements under NIST CSF and SMB1001:2026 (Level 3 – Gold), which call for both a policy and a plan.

What to Include in an Incident Response Policy

Your policy doesn’t need to be complicated or filled with technical jargon. It should simply make clear how your business will respond if something goes wrong.

Typical inclusions consist of:

1. Purpose and Scope – explain why the policy exists and which systems and data it applies to.
2. Objectives – set high-level goals like protecting customer data, reducing downtime, and maintaining trust.
3. Roles and Authority – name who leads the response (often the business owner or manager) and when it’s time for your MSP to take over the technical aspects.
4. Reference Frameworks – mention that your process aligns with NIST CSF and SMB1001:2026, showing a best-practice approach.
5. Review and Approval – decide how often the policy will be reviewed (typically yearly) and who signs it off.
6. Continuous Improvement – commit to updating the process after each incident or test.

The key is to keep it clear, practical, and realistic for your business size. Leave the detailed technical steps for your Incident Response Plan, which this policy will authorise.

Who Should Be Involved

For most businesses with 10-40 staff, policy creation involves just a few key people:

• Business Owner or Director provides overall authority and approves the policy.
• Office Manager or Team Lead helps coordinate staff communications during incidents.
• Your Managed Service Provider (MSP) acts as your IT and cybersecurity team, contributing the technical expertise and drafting the policy so it aligns with your systems and compliance needs.

Here at IQPC, we often work directly with management to keep things simple, creating documents that reflect your actual business rather than a large-enterprise model.

From Draft to Approval

Once the draft policy is ready:

1. Review it together with your MSP to confirm it matches your technology and structure.
2. Have management sign off so it becomes an official business policy.
3. Share it with staff, so everyone knows what to do and who to contact if something happens.

A short staff briefing or inclusion in onboarding is often enough – no complex training required.

Policy vs Plan | Knowing the Difference

It’s easy to confuse a policy with a plan. The difference comes down to intent versus action:

Your policy sets direction and authorises action, whilst your plan provides the instructions your MSP follows to carry it out.

An Incident Response Policy doesn’t need to be long or technical, it just needs to be clear, authorised, and actionable.

By working with your Managed Service Provider to create one aligned with NIST CSF and SMB1001:2026, your business can meet compliance requirements and respond faster when incidents occur.

It’s a simple step that builds trust, confidence, and resilience – especially for growing SMBs that rely on outsourced IT support.

If your business needs an incident response policy, reach out to our team to discuss how we can help.