A serious cyber incident places immediate pressure on every part of your organisation. Available as a PROTECT+ bolt-on, CloudGuard’s Incident Response Retainer gives you a direct route to expert support, before that pressure turns into delay, confusion and wider disruption. You get a response plan, named contacts and specialist responders ready to act within 60 minutes, 24 hours a day.
When a major incident hits, internal IT and security teams are expected to manage multiple priorities at once, often without the specialist support needed to keep pace.
Many organisations only revisit incident response after an audit finding or a live event, leaving plans outdated, roles unclear and key decisions untested.
IT leaders are already balancing operations, support, projects and security. Without external specialists ready to engage, pressure builds quickly and steps get missed.
Dashboards and policies don’t show how a business will respond under pressure. The first real test often comes during a live attack, when uncertainty costs the most.
Every organisation is at a different stage of cyber readiness. Some have a plan but no direct access to specialist support; others have support but no tested structure for communication and escalation. Our incident response retainer supports all three scenarios.
We establish technical incident leadership, open an incident bridge and provide updates every 30 minutes throughout active response, so you always know what’s happening and what happens next.
We engage with your third parties, including cyber insurers, legal teams and suppliers, to ensure all aspects of an incident are contained and managed in line with industry best practice standards.
We build a best practice, fit-for-business Incident Response Plan with a clear event management and containment structure and named contacts, then review roles, responsibilities, reporting structures and regulatory awareness on an ongoing basis, so your plan keeps pace with your organisation
Every retainer is shaped around your business, your risks and your internal teams, giving you a usable framework rather than a document that sits untouched until something goes wrong.
We identify and validate that a genuine cyber incident is underway, confirming scope and severity before invoking the response.
We invoke the appropriate level of service response based on the nature and severity of the incident, activating the right resources immediately.
We establish clear communications with your team and follow your Incident Response Plan, providing technical updates every 30 minutes and over-communicating throughout.
We take on technical leadership to contain, protect and manage the incident, engaging any necessary third parties and authorities as required.
We complete all necessary forensic investigations and confirm whether any data leakage or exfiltration has occurred, giving you clear evidence of impact.
We complete a full root cause analysis and review and continually update your Incident Response Plan, so resilience improves after every incident.
We don’t want you negotiating contracts or onboarding suppliers during a live incident. Our retainer gives you guaranteed access to CloudGuard incident responders, with predictable response terms aligned to your IR plan, severity levels and decision gates.
Common triggers we hear include concerns about negotiating contracts mid-incident, insurer requirements for named response support, and near-misses that exposed gaps in existing response capability.
Organisations that understand incidents will happen and want expert support ready and available immediately, not sourced during a crisis.
Businesses operating under GDPR, NIS2, FCA or sector-specific oversight, where speed, evidence handling and decision-making discipline matter.
Organisations that need defensible, expert-led response decisions during high-impact incidents, with named contacts and predefined SLAs agreed in advance.
The Incident Response Retainer is an add on to CloudGuard’s PROTECT+ Managed XDR service. We need access to your current environment to ensure expert Cyber Incident Responders will be actively working on the customer incident within 60 minutes.
CloudGuard is embedded in the cybersecurity industry – recognised, accredited, and trusted to protect real organisations every day.
Our cybersecurity experts will assess your organisation’s current security posture, with remediation actions to close any gaps.
Test your Incident Response Plan against a simulated cyber attack scenario in a controlled, low-pressure environment.
Strengthen day-to-day detection and response readiness alongside your incident response retainer.
Our responders can be actively working on a declared incident within 60 minutes, 24 hours a day. This includes establishing technical leadership, opening the incident bridge and beginning work through your agreed response plan. Updates are provided every 30 minutes during active response, so your team and stakeholders stay informed as the situation develops, rather than waiting for scheduled check-ins during a high-pressure event.
The service includes readiness planning, technical incident leadership, a live incident bridge, 30-minute updates during active response, third-party coordination, and review and improvement activity after the event. The initial 10 hours of incident response are included within the annual service charge, giving you a clear starting point for what’s covered before any additional time is discussed.
Yes. The retainer includes response planning, review of roles and responsibilities, reporting structures and regular updates to improve readiness and resilience. This means you have a tested, usable plan in place before you ever need to rely on it, rather than a document that’s written once and left untouched.
Yes. We work with third-party contacts, including cyber insurers, legal teams and suppliers, to help contain, manage and remediate the incident. This coordination is agreed as part of your retainer, so escalation paths and points of contact are already established before an incident occurs, rather than being worked out under pressure.
Yes. This service is particularly useful for mid-sized organisations that need specialist incident support without building a large in-house response function. It gives you guaranteed access to senior responders when needed, without the cost or complexity of maintaining that capability internally on a day-to-day basis.
Yes. The Incident Response Retainer is an add on to CloudGuard’s PROTECT+ Managed XDR service. We need access to your current environment to ensure expert Cyber Incident Responders will be actively working on the customer incident within 60 minutes.
Cyber incidents do not arrive at a convenient time. The best moment to prepare is before your team is forced to respond under pressure. Talk to us today about building a response model that is ready when it matters most.
