Plan for cyber incidents with a few steps

At the 2025 TECHLeadership Conference, Director of Business Technology Solutions Eric Eisenbraun explained important lessons organizations can learn to plan for the future and plan for the worst. In his breakout session “Plans are Nothing, Planning is Everything” he explains why cybersecurity isn’t everything for a business.

Nearly everyone remembers watching Kevin McCallister outsmart burglars with planned obstacles and traps to trick them to defend himself. Three and a half decades later, you can use Kevin’s same adaptability in your cybersecurity strategy.

“Planning isn’t about predicting the future,” Eisenbraun says. “It’s about thinking through possibilities and preparing your team to respond when something changes.”

Make a plan, test it

Eric used other real-world and historical examples to explain why preparing for the future requires plans for every scenario, not just the goal scenario. Many businesses benefit from not only documenting cyber threats and creating incident response plans, but by testing them too.

“Talking through different situations helps teams think about how they would react if something unexpected happens,” Eric says. “Test your plan and then ask, ‘did we meet our goal?’ After you test it, you start that feedback loop all over again.”

One conversation is key

Each test doesn’t need to be complicated or time-consuming, but it should reveal gaps plans may have. It doesn’t matter what organizations do before a cyber incident – it matters what they can do afterwards.

Collaborate across departments to help improve the preparedness of the entire team and every individual team member. When people from different areas of the organization talk together, they can better understand how everything connects.

Work consistently, not perfectly

For his final lesson in planning, Eric emphasizes how businesses learn from the past. To create a stronger and more secure cybersecurity plan, organizations need to determine and document what is working and what isn’t.

The goal is never to create a perfect plan and keep it the same forever. Instead, the goal is to build on every lesson a team learns to think, adjust, and move forward when challenges arise. To watch Eric’s entire breakout session, click here.

Does your business have a plan for if your Wi-Fi network goes down? To find out how to approach planning and what to do after a cyber incident, schedule a consultation today.