Which sequence describes typical privacy breach incident response?

• A. Ignore the incident, then patch and continue.
• B. Only notify executives and halt all operations indefinitely.
• C. Detect/contain, assess scope, eradicate vulnerability, notify stakeholders, recover services, and conduct a post-incident review with preventive actions.
• D. Replace entire system without analysis.

Answer: (C)

A privacy breach calls for a structured incident response that focuses on stopping the damage, understanding what happened, and preventing it from recurring. Start by detecting and containing the incident so the exposure doesn’t spread further. Then assess the scope to identify exactly what data or systems were affected and the potential impact. Next, eradicate the vulnerability or attacker foothold to remove the root cause and reduce the chance of reoccurrence. After that, notify stakeholders as required by policy, law, and contractual obligations, so affected parties and regulators are informed. Then work to recover services and bring operations back to normal, ensuring safeguards stay in place. Finally, conduct a post-incident review to capture lessons learned and implement preventive actions to strengthen defenses. This approach ensures timely containment, accountability, service restoration, and continuous improvement. Ignoring the incident, halting everything indefinitely, or replacing the system without analysis fails to address immediate risk, legal requirements, or learning opportunities.