Incident Response & SOC Readiness Baseline

A set of controls that must be in place in advance for fast and effective response to a security incident: a written IR plan and team, classification and escalation, centralized log/SIEM with adequate retention, EDR/NDR coverage and detection engineering, threat intel, tabletop exercises, forensic readiness, communication and reporting obligations, and post-incident review. Framework is SANS CIS Controls v8 Control 17 and NIST SP 800-61; preparedness wins at the moment of response.