Cyber Incident Response

Incident response retainers typically range from £8,500 to £25,000+ annually depending on organisation size, complexity, and support level. A standard retainer for a mid-sized organisation (200-1,000 employees) averages £12,000/year including 24/7 availability, pre-scoped response planning, IR tabletop exercise, and cyber insurance integration. Emergency ad-hoc incident response (without retainer) is billed on time-and-materials basis, typically £1,500-£2,500 per consultant day with typical ransomware incidents requiring 7-15 days of effort (£10,500-£37,500 total cost). Retainer clients receive preferential rates (typically 20-30% discount on ad-hoc rates), guaranteed 4-hour on-site SLAs, and no minimum spend requirements for deployment. For comparison, the average ransomware incident costs £3.5 million in downtime, recovery, and reputational damage, making retainer pricing a fraction of potential breach cost.

Ad-hoc incident response (calling without a retainer) creates critical delays and higher costs during the most time-sensitive hours: (1) Cold engagement requires 2-4 hours for scoping calls, legal agreements, and payment terms before response begins. During a ransomware attack, every hour of delay means more encrypted systems. (2) Ad-hoc rates are 20-30% higher than retainer pricing (£2,500/day vs £1,800/day for retainer clients). (3) No guaranteed SLAs means you are competing with other incidents for analyst availability. (4) Responders start from zero knowledge of your environment, requiring additional discovery time. (5) No pre-established relationships with your cyber insurance provider, legal counsel, or executive team. Retainer clients receive immediate mobilisation (we already know your environment), preferential pricing, guaranteed SLAs, and proactive IR planning. The retainer cost (£12,000/year average) is recovered in the first 5-6 days of a single incident through rate savings and faster recovery.

The arithmetic is straightforward. A standard ransomware engagement at ad-hoc rates runs £10,500-£37,500 in consultant time alone, before you factor in downtime, ransomware payment, regulatory fines, and reputational damage. The retainer costs £8,500-£25,000/year. The arithmetic only works in the CFO's favour if nothing ever happens. Retainer clients also receive 20-30% discounted rates if they do engage, proactive incident response planning that satisfies ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus audit requirements, and a tabletop exercise that counts toward board assurance. The retainer is not insurance you 'use.' It is a capability that costs less than not having it.

While internal IT teams understand your infrastructure, they typically lack the specialised skills, tooling, and objectivity required for effective cyber incident response: (1) Incident response requires forensic investigation skills (memory analysis, malware reverse engineering, attack reconstruction) that IT operations teams do not use in daily work. (2) IT teams focus on restoring service; IR teams focus on understanding root cause and preventing recurrence. Prematurely rebuilding systems destroys forensic evidence. (3) Advanced threats require specialised tooling (CrowdStrike Falcon, EnCase forensics, Volatility memory analysis) and threat intelligence IT teams do not have. (4) IT teams are under extreme pressure during incidents. External specialists provide objective analysis without organisational politics. (5) Major incidents require 24/7 response for days or weeks. Most organisations use internal IT for initial containment and external IR specialists for forensic investigation, root cause analysis, and remediation planning.

Client confidentiality is paramount in cyber incident response and protected by multiple safeguards: (1) All engagements are conducted under strict NDA with explicit confidentiality clauses and professional indemnity insurance. (2) We operate under ISO 27001 certified information security management systems with access controls, encryption, and audit logging for all case data. (3) CREST accreditation requires demonstrated ethical standards and confidentiality practices with regular independent audits. (4) Forensic evidence and case files are stored in encrypted, segregated case management systems with role-based access. (5) We never disclose client names, breach details, or incident specifics without explicit written authorisation. We have responded to hundreds of high-profile breaches across finance, healthcare, and government without a single confidentiality breach.

While no IR provider can guarantee 100% data recovery (the threat actor already has access when you call), our track record demonstrates consistent success: (1) We contain active breaches in 90%+ of cases within 48-72 hours using rapid isolation, credential resets, and network segmentation. (2) We establish root cause and full attack timeline in 85%+ of cases. (3) Retainer clients receive proactive backup validation and IR planning to maximise recovery success before incidents occur. (4) Even in worst-case scenarios, our regulatory guidance, insurance liaison, and crisis communications minimise reputational and financial damage. Our goal is damage limitation, evidence preservation, and preventing recurrence.

Cyber incident response is the structured process an organisation follows to identify, contain, investigate, and recover from a cybersecurity breach. Precursor Security's cyber incident response service covers the full lifecycle: initial emergency triage, forensic investigation, threat eradication, system recovery, and post-incident reporting.

The NIST 800-61 incident response lifecycle defines four phases, commonly expanded to five in practice: (1) Preparation: establishing an IR plan, retainer, and response playbooks before an incident occurs; (2) Identification: detecting the incident, scoping its extent, and determining whether a breach has occurred; (3) Containment: isolating affected systems to halt lateral movement and data exfiltration; (4) Eradication and Recovery: removing threat actors, eliminating persistence mechanisms, and restoring systems to a secure baseline; (5) Post-Incident Review: root cause analysis, lessons learned, and hardening to prevent recurrence. Precursor Security follows this lifecycle on every engagement, with a typical ransomware incident moving from initial call to full eradication in 5-10 business days.

Under GDPR Article 33, you must notify the ICO within 72 hours of becoming aware of a personal data breach, provided the breach is likely to result in a risk to individuals' rights and freedoms. Not all cyber incidents trigger this obligation: if no personal data was accessed or exfiltrated, ICO notification may not be required. However, the 72-hour clock starts from the point of awareness, not the point of full investigation. Precursor's cyber incident response team assesses ICO notification requirements within the first hours of engagement and provides written guidance on whether and when to notify. We have supported hundreds of organisations through regulatory notification processes, including preparing notification drafts and managing ICO liaison.

Precursor Security responds to the full spectrum of cyber incidents including ransomware attacks, business email compromise (BEC), advanced persistent threats (APTs), data breaches, insider threats, supply chain compromises, and destructive malware. Our team has handled incidents across healthcare, financial services, legal, manufacturing, and critical national infrastructure.

Yes. Precursor Security is a CrowdStrike Incident Response Engagement Partner. We deploy CrowdStrike Falcon for endpoint visibility alongside our own proven tooling for complex environments including Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Citrix, Fortinet, and AWS.

An IR retainer is a pre-agreed engagement that ensures you have immediate access to expert responders who already understand your environment. Precursor's retainer includes 24/7 availability, pre-scoped response, incident response planning, tabletop exercises, and cyber insurance integration. It is proactive preparation, not just a phone number.

Yes. Our team provides expert guidance on ICO notification requirements, GDPR reporting obligations, and regulatory timelines. We help you meet legal obligations while managing reputational risk, and produce reports in formats suitable for regulators, insurers, and legal counsel.

Precursor Security is CREST accredited for both penetration testing and SOC operations. We hold ISO 27001, ISO 9001, and Cyber Essentials Plus certifications. Our analysts hold GIAC, OSCP, and CREST-level certifications relevant to digital forensics and incident response.

Before signing with any incident response vendor, check five things: (1) CREST accreditation for DFIR and SOC operations, which independently verifies the team's competence; (2) explicit breach notification support, meaning the vendor assesses your ICO and GDPR Article 33 obligations and drafts regulatory notifications within the first hours of an incident; (3) a clear SLA for mobilisation and on-site response; (4) whether you can engage on an emergency, ad-hoc basis without committing to a long-term contract, so you can test the relationship before you retain them; and (5) UK-based, DBS-checked responders with confidentiality safeguards. Precursor meets all five: we are CREST-accredited, provide breach notification and ICO liaison as standard, publish response SLAs, and take emergency engagements with no requirement to sign a retainer first. Many organisations start with a single ad-hoc engagement and move to a retainer once they have seen how we work.