Why a World class incident response team is a talent advantage

A robust IR team is no longer a luxury, it’s an operational necessity.

And, the benefits are clear:

• Speed and Containment: The faster a breach is detected and contained, the less damage it does.
• Minimised Financial Losses: According to IBM, the average cost of a data breach in 2024 was $4.45 million. An elite IR team drastically reduces this figure – they cost less to hire too
• Regulatory Compliance: Rapid response helps meet GDPR, HIPAA, and other data protection mandates.
• Reputation Management: Swift, decisive action can be the difference between a quiet fix and front page headlines.
• Operational Continuity: Downtime kills, IR teams get you back online fast.

But what does “world class” look like?

We asked Stefano Maccaglia, Head of the Incident Response practice at NetWitness – An expert in crisis management, witty one-liners, and improving the world’s largest companies security posture (usually in that order)…

“An Elite Cybersecurity Incident Response Team (IRT) is like a digital SWAT team, but with more caffeine and fewer cool uniforms. These folks are the ones you call when a sophisticated cybercriminal or a cyberespionage actor decides your network is their new playground.

They don’t just “turn it off and on again” – they hunt down threats, outsmart attackers, and occasionally mutter things like, “Oh, that’s clever… let’s see where they landed through this fancy exploit…”

An Elite IRT doesn’t just respond to incidents, it operates like a precision engineered clock, where every cog (team member) turns in perfect sync with the others.

The difference between a good IR team and an elite one? Relentless, structured communication.

In a nutshell, an Elite IRT is like a mix of detectives, soldiers, and IT support, just with more stress, more caffeine and surely less sleep.”

Apart from his witty one-liners, Stefano is also the perfect person to give us mere mortals who are still relying solely on antivirus software, insight into life on the front line –

“When a major breach hits, chaos is the enemy.

The first 24 – 48 hours are a pressure cooker.

Executives demand answers, attackers are still active, and evidence is evaporating. In this storm, the IRT’s ability to share critical findings instantly, without bottlenecks, is what separates a contained incident from a full-blown disaster.

The Incident Response Symphony (Orchestrated Chaos)

Each specialist has a defined role, but they don’t work in isolation. Instead, they function like a hive mind:

The Triage Team (First Responders) – These are the paramedics of cybersecurity.

They assess the initial alert, determine if it’s a false alarm or a five alarm fire, and immediately broadcast their findings to the rest of the team. A single overlooked detail here can send the investigation spiraling in the wrong direction.

Forensic Investigators (The Evidence Collectors) – They dive into logs, memory dumps, and network traffic. But instead of hoarding data, they continuously feed their discoveries to the malware analysts and threat intel team. If they find a suspicious PowerShell script at 2 AM, they don’t wait for a morning meeting, they shout it into the team chat now.

Threat Intelligence (The Profilers) – They’re the ones who look at an attack and say, “This matches APT29’s playbook.”

But, their insights are useless if they don’t rapidly share them with the responders, who can then adjust containment strategies in real time.

Containment & Eradication (The Firefighters) – These folks act on live intelligence.

If forensics finds a backdoor, they don’t wait for a report, they isolate the system while the rest of the team keeps digging.

Why Communication Breakdown = Disaster

Imagine this:

• The forensic analyst discovers data exfiltration but doesn’t tell the network team.
• The network team, unaware, leaves the attacker’s exit route open.
• The malware analyst finds a new variant but doesn’t update the EDR team.
• The EDR team’s tools don’t block it, and the breach spreads.

Boom. A preventable incident just became a headline.

How Elite Teams Stay in Sync

Structured Updates – No “I’ll send an email later.” Findings are shared in real time via dedicated IR channels (Slack, Teams, or even a war room).

• Clear Escalation Paths – If a responder finds something critical, they know exactly who needs to hear it immediately.
• Blameless Debriefs – After-action reviews focus on process, not blame. “Why wasn’t this shared faster?” leads to better workflows, not reprimands.
• Automation for Speed – Playbooks ensure that when one team finds an IOC (Indicator of Compromise), it’s automatically pushed to all relevant tools and analysts.

The Human Factor (Where AI Still Loses)

Why AI Won’t Steal Their Jobs (Yet)

Sure, AI can spot patterns and automate responses, but when it comes to real cyber warfare, like APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats, aka “really patient hackers”) AI still has the strategic depth of a goldfish.

Here’s why humans still rule:

• AI can detect anomalies, but it can’t:
• Walk over to a colleague’s desk and say, “Hey, this looks weird, what do you think?”
• Read the room during a crisis and adjust communication on the fly.
• Make judgment calls when data is incomplete (because attackers love leaving false trails).

Final Thought: The Best IR Teams Talk More Than They Type

An elite IRT isn’t just a group of experts, it’s a network of experts who treat information sharing as oxygen. When the pressure is on, their communication is what turns a frantic scramble into a coordinated counterattack.

Or, as we are used to say:

“If your team isn’t communicating, you’re not responding, you’re just running in circles while the attacker laughs.”

Anatomy of an Elite IR Team

Top tier incident response professionals are a rare breed, part threat hunter, part analyst, part crisis communicator.

Key roles we help companies hire include:

• Incident Response Manager: Orchestrates the team and ensures structured playbook execution.  They are also the unofficial Crisis Communicator
• Security Analysts: Monitor and triage alerts, analyse data, and conduct forensics.
• Threat Intelligence Experts: Understand attacker TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) and bring context to investigations.
• Forensics & Malware Specialists: Reverse engineer attacks, preserve evidence, and learn from breaches.
• Crisis Communicators & Legal Advisors: Interface with stakeholders, regulators, and the press.  The PR team are polishing the external messaging that comes from the IR Manager.

Assembling this level of expertise takes more than a job board. It requires precision talent acquisition rooted in global insight.

These individuals aren’t easy to find.

They’re not applying to your careers page.

They’re already solving problems for someone else.

Often deep inside a government agency, telco, cloud provider, or a Tier 1 cybersecurity consultancy.

• They’re passive. You won’t find them, unless you know exactly where to look.
• They’re distributed. The best IR talent is globally dispersed, from Singapore to São Paulo.
• They’re scarce. Demand far exceeds supply, especially for professionals with experience in live breach scenarios.

So how do leading companies build elite IR teams when talent is this hard to reach?

At Iperium, we’ve spent over two decades helping cybersecurity vendors scale globally.

That experience is now embedded into our proprietary platform – talent.ai.

Here’s how talent.ai helps companies build elite IR teams:

• Intelligent Talent Mapping: We identify IR professionals who’ve handled breaches in your sector, not just those with nice résumés.
• Passive Talent Activation: Our behavioural signals track who’s open to change, what motivates them, and when they’re likely to engage.
• Geo targeted Search: Whether you’re hiring in Riyadh, Rotterdam, or Raleigh, talent.ai surfaces candidates with proven local impact.
• Speed to Shortlist: Curated, high fidelity shortlists are delivered in days, not weeks.
• Employer Branding Intelligence: Understand what top responders want from an employer, then build campaigns that speak to them.

This approach turns IR hiring from reactive scramble into proactive strategy.

An incident response team is your last line of defence, and often your first line of exposure.

In an age where cybercrime moves at machine speed, hiring the right talent isn’t just about risk mitigation. It’s about brand protection. Revenue continuity. Investor confidence.

A world class IR team reduces the blast radius of a breach. But only if you have one before the breach happens.

Cybersecurity readiness begins with people.

And the organisations who win tomorrow are the ones investing in that readiness today.

If you’re building, scaling, or strengthening your IR function, we can help.

We know where the elite talent is.

We know how to reach them.

And we’ve done it at speed, globally, for some of the most ambitious companies in the industry.

Together, let’s build the team you hope you’ll never need…

Let’s talk