At A Glance
Our Data Breach Response Guide provides practical guidance to help your organization prepare, respond and recover while protecting your customers, reputation and business.For businesses today, the question isn’t simply how to prevent a data breach. It’s how prepared you are to respond when an incident occurs.
The threat landscape continues to evolve as organizations become more connected, adopt new technologies and rely on increasingly complex ecosystems of vendors and partners.
In the U.S., in 2025, data compromises reached a recordhigh of 3,322, up 5% from the previous year.And the financial stakes remain significant. The average cost of a U.S. data breach reached an all-time high ($11.5M), while third-party involvement in breaches continued to increase.
Preparedness can make a measurable difference
When a breach happens, organizations may need to coordinate IT, legal, communications, customer service, executive leadership and external partners, often under significant time pressure.
Having a plan in place before an incident occurs can help teams respond more efficiently and protect the relationships that matter most. Our Data Breach Response Guide points to several compelling reasons to make preparedness a priority:
Preparedness is about more than documenting what should happen. Organizations also need to establish clear roles, identify external partners, test their processes and understand how they’ll communicate with affected consumers when every minute counts.
Build a response plan before you need it
The 12th edition of the guide is designed to help organizations prepare for the cybersecurity challenges ahead.
Our guide provides practical guidance for building and testing a response plan, assembling the right internal and external teams, managing third-party and supply chain risk, preparing crisis communications and navigating the critical first 24 hours following a breach. It also includes preparedness checklists and sample breach-response drill scenarios that organizations can use to identify potential gaps before an actual incident occurs.
Because when an incident happens, the work you’ve done beforehand can shape what happens next.
Is your organization prepared?
Download the 2026–2027 Data Breach Response Guide to assess your readiness and learn practical steps for building, testing and strengthening your breach response plan.
