What is the primary function of incident response?

The primary function of incident response is centered on minimizing damage from security incidents and facilitating recovery. When a security incident occurs, the goal of an incident response team is to quickly understand the nature of the threat, contain it to prevent further damage, eradicate the root cause of the incident, and restore affected systems and data to normal operations. This process involves a structured approach that includes preparation, detection and analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, and post-incident handling.

By focusing on minimizing damage and enabling swift recovery, incident response teams help organizations to limit the impact of security breaches on their operations, reputation, and finances. This proactive and reactive approach ensures that while threats may occur, organizations can mitigate their effects effectively, ensuring continuity of business operations.

The other options, while related to broader aspects of cybersecurity, do not encapsulate the primary function of incident response. Preventing data breaches is a proactive measure, not an incident response function. Analyzing user behavior is more aligned with monitoring and user behavior analytics rather than incident management. Developing marketing strategies is unrelated to cybersecurity and incident response.