Before the Breach: Why You Need an IR Retainer Like a Golfer Needs a Caddie
Joe Knight, Senior Account Executive
An incident response retainer isn’t just a contract, it’s a relationship. It sets expectations, defines access methods, outlines pricing, and ensures your team and your IR partner are already speaking the same language.
Partnership Over Products
You don’t call in a caddie after the damage is done, you bring them in before the first tee. You want someone by your side who knows your game – your strengths, your blind spots, and how to navigate the course before you tee off.
Cybersecurity is no different. Preparation and partnership matter before the pressure’s on.
In my role, I’ve spoken with countless organizations that understand the risks they face but wait too long to get a game plan in place. And yes, it is inevitable. If you’re connected to the internet, it’s not a matter of if an incident will happen, it’s when. And when it does, every second counts. Your ability to respond quickly can determine how far you fall behind on the leaderboard financially, reputationally, and operationally.
You Can’t Call a Caddie Mid-Round
Here’s something many companies don’t realize: when a major breach happens, incident response firms get flooded with calls. Everyone’s trying to book a tee time after the round has already started. But the companies with a signed IR retainer go straight to the front of the line. The relationship is in place, the paperwork is done, and the tools are ready to deploy.
Without that prep, even the best IR firm might need time to scope the issue, process paperwork, coordinate legal, and get access… not because they’re slow, but because no one warmed up. And while all that’s happening, the attacker could already be on the back nine.
Fast Play Starts with Preparation
During a security incident, there’s no time to decide how to exchange sensitive data, what you can legally share, or how to securely connect analysts into your environment. These should be figured out before the first swing.
An incident response retainer isn’t just a contract, it’s a relationship. It sets expectations, defines access methods, outlines pricing, and ensures your team and your IR partner are already speaking the same language. It’s like a pre-round strategy session: walking the course, studying the pin placements, knowing which clubs to reach for under pressure.
Without that, you’re left scrambling and in cybersecurity, scrambling often means losing.
IR is a Process with Defined Steps, Not a Wild Recovery Shot
Just like a championship round, incident response follows a proven structure:
Identify. Contain. Eradicate. Recover.
- Identify what happened: what systems were impacted, what data was accessed, how the attacker got in, and whether they’re still in play.
- Contain the breach with precision. You don’t want to scare off the attacker before you understand the full scope, or destroy evidence needed for investigation or legal action.
- Eradicate the threat: close backdoors, remove persistence mechanisms, reset compromised credentials, and address the original vulnerability.
- Recover in a controlled, monitored way. Just like you wouldn’t rush to the next hole after a triple bogey, you don’t want to bring systems back online without verifying security, improving visibility, and locking down weak spots.
What You Really Buy Is Peace of Mind
At the end of the day, what every organization wants is certainty that the threat is gone, the systems are safe, and the incident is fully resolved. That peace of mind doesn’t come from hoping for the best. It comes from experience.
That’s what a CISO Global IR retainer delivers. Not just a service but a team who already knows your course, your swing, and your strategy. A team who can guide you through a crisis with clarity and speed.
Strong Security Starts Before You’re in Trouble on the Course
To bring it back to golf: nobody tries to hire a caddie mid-round, after losing two balls and chunking it into a water hazard. A good caddie walks the course with you beforehand. They know your rhythm. They’ve seen your misses. They hand you the right club, at the right time, and help you save par when it counts most.
That’s what incident response should feel like.
At CISO Global, we don’t just offer retainers. We offer readiness and calm under pressure. We offer a team that’s already waiting at the first tee so when the breach happens, you’re not scrambling for help. You’re already playing smart.