On Retainer

    Incident Response

    The worst time to meet your incident responder is during the incident. Our retainer puts a tested plan, an exercised team, and a committed response SLA in place before you need any of it.

    Prepare. Exercise. Respond. Recover.

    Discuss a retainer

    Our founder was quoted in InformationWeek's coverage of cyberattack recovery: safety and revenue first, everything else is secondary. The longer version of that thinking is in our guide, IT Recovery Is Not Business Recovery, and it is the philosophy this retainer is built on.

    Why a retainer

    The first days of an incident are spent on decisions: what to contain, what to restore, who to notify, what to tell the board. Without a retainer, they are spent finding a firm, negotiating terms, and explaining your environment to strangers while the damage compounds.

    There is a second reason: your cyber insurance carrier is already asking. Renewal questionnaires increasingly want a tested incident response plan and a named response arrangement. The retainer is the yes to both.

    Scope

    What the retainer includes

    Scope and SLA are set per agreement, sized to your environment and risk. No off-the-shelf tiers, no pay-per-panic.

    Incident Response Plan, Built and Maintained

    A working IRP written for your environment, not a template with your logo. Reviewed and updated on a set cadence so it reflects the systems and people you actually have.

    Tabletop & Removal Exercises

    Scheduled exercises with your team, including the one we recommend most: declare a critical system gone, vendor support included, and find the hidden dependencies at exercise cost instead of incident cost.

    Priority Response Line

    Retainer clients get a committed response SLA, defined in your agreement, with an experienced incident commander leading from the first call. No procurement cycle while the clock runs.

    Incident Command & Coordination

    We lead the response: scoping, containment decisions, workstream coordination, and the restore-fast versus rebuild-clean calls, made against criteria we agreed on before anything happened.

    Carrier & Counsel Coordination

    Pre-mapped escalation paths to forensics partners, your cyber insurance carrier's panel, and breach counsel, so day one of an incident is execution, not introductions.

    Executive & Board Communication

    Capacity, cost per day, and the next realistic milestone. We keep leadership informed in business terms while the technical response runs, and we write the after-action report your board and insurer expect.

    The difference

    The BlueRadius difference

    Readiness Is the Product, Response Is the Promise

    Most retainers are a phone number you hope you never dial. Ours front-loads the work that determines how an incident goes: the plan, the exercises, the decision rules, and the relationships, so the response starts at hour zero, not week zero.

    An Incident Commander Who Knows Your Business

    When the call comes, you get a named leader who has already run exercises with your team and knows your systems, your tiers, and your tolerance for downtime. Not a stranger reading your network diagram for the first time.

    Recovery Means Business Recovery

    Systems restored is not the finish line. We drive to the outcome that matters: critical operations producing at normal capacity, with the evidence trail your carrier and auditors will ask for.

    FAQ

    Frequently asked questions

    What is an incident response retainer?+
    A standing agreement that gives your organization a committed response SLA, a pre-built incident response plan, scheduled exercises, and an experienced incident commander on call. When an incident happens, response starts immediately under terms agreed in advance, instead of losing the first days to procurement and onboarding.
    Why do cyber insurance carriers ask about IR retainers?+
    Because response speed drives claim size. Many carriers now ask on renewal questionnaires whether you have an incident response plan, when it was last tested, and whether you have a retainer in place. A retainer answers all three, and some carriers factor it into terms.
    What happens when we call during an incident?+
    You reach the response line, an incident commander engages within your agreement's SLA, and we run the playbook we built together: scope it, make the containment and restore-versus-rebuild calls against pre-agreed criteria, coordinate forensics and carrier notification, and keep your executives informed in business terms.
    Do you handle forensics and legal work?+
    We lead and coordinate the response. Deep forensics and breach counsel come from pre-mapped specialist partners and your carrier's approved panel, engaged through relationships established when the retainer starts. You get one incident commander and a bench behind them, not a handoff maze.
    We already have an IR plan. Do we still need a retainer?+
    If the plan has never been exercised against your real systems and nobody is on call to run it, it is a document, not a capability. The retainer turns the document into a tested plan with a committed responder attached. We will happily start by exercising the plan you have.
    How is this different from an MSSP or managed detection?+
    Detection tells you something is wrong. Response is everything that happens next: containment decisions, recovery order, carrier coordination, and executive communication. We work alongside your MSSP or EDR provider; our retainer covers the leadership and readiness layer they do not.

    Related reading: incident response planning · the executive's guide to digital forensics · business recovery vs IT recovery

    Serving These Markets

    Local expertise, national reach. We deliver hands-on cybersecurity services in these markets.

    Austin, TXDallas, TXFort Worth, TXSeattle, WAChicago, IL

    Put the plan in place before you need it

    One conversation to scope your environment, your carrier's requirements, and what a retainer should cover for you.

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