Incident Response Services for Orange County Businesses
Readiness assessments, response plans, tabletop exercises and outage resilience reviews, CISO-led and $3,500 fixed per service.
Outages that are not attacks still stop the business
Cloud, SaaS, internet and vendor failures halt work as surely as ransomware. We map what you depend on and plan for it.
The evidence auditors and insurers ask for
Every deliverable is written as audit evidence, so one engagement supports HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, NIST and your insurance renewal.
Incident response services that prepare you before the bad day
Most businesses have pieces of a response: an IT provider, a backup product, an insurance policy. Few have the written decisions, contacts and tested steps that turn those pieces into a response. Our incident response services build and test that layer.
We work with businesses in Irvine, across Orange County and Southern California on-site, and remotely nationwide. The work is read-only and independent: we review, document, test with your team and report. Your counsel, insurer and IT providers stay in their roles.
- Cyber incidents: ransomware, account takeover, business email compromise, data exposure
- Outages: cloud and SaaS failures, internet loss, a bad vendor update
- Compliance: the plan, tests and records your frameworks and insurer expect
Eight services in three stages
Start with the stage you need. Each service is $3,500 fixed and stands on its own.
Prepare
Incident Response Readiness Assessment
17 administrative controls scored against NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3 and your frameworks, with a 90-day roadmap.
$3,500 fixedSee the assessment →Incident Response Plan & Playbooks
A written plan, roles and decision authority, a notification decision tree and six scenario playbooks.
$3,500 fixedIncident response planning →Tabletop Exercise
An executive or technical exercise built on your own systems and vendors, with an after-action report.
$3,500 fixedRequest a proposal →Withstand and recover
Business Impact Analysis & BCDR Readiness
Critical systems ranked, recovery targets set by your business owners, downtime procedures and a restore-test plan.
$3,500 fixedBusiness continuity and DR →Ransomware Resilience Assessment
Initial access, containment and recovery readiness, including backup separation and restore-test evidence.
$3,500 fixedRansomware readiness →Cloud & SaaS Outage Resilience Review
A dependency map of Microsoft 365, cloud, DNS, internet and key vendors, single points of failure and outage playbooks.
$3,500 fixedRequest a proposal →Respond and prove
Incident Response Advisory
Triage guidance, evidence preservation and coordination with your counsel, insurer and IT team during an incident.
$3,500 fixedIncident response advisory →Incident Advisory Retainer
Yearly readiness review, one tabletop a year, plan upkeep and priority advisory when something happens.
$3,500 per monthRequest retainer terms →Notification deadlines leave no time to improvise
To notify affected California residents of a data breach, from discovery.
Cal. Civ. Code 1798.82(a)To send the California Attorney General a sample notice, after notifying more than 500 residents.
Cal. Civ. Code 1798.82(f)For financial institutions under the FTC Safeguards Rule to notify the FTC when 500+ consumers are involved.
16 CFR 314.4(j)For service providers to notify SEC-registered advisers and broker-dealers of a breach of customer information systems.
SEC Regulation S-P, 2024 amendmentsGeneral information, not legal advice. Your counsel decides which deadlines apply to you.
Recent outages that were not cyberattacks
Each of these stopped work for businesses that had done nothing wrong. A plan for losing a provider is part of incident response.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| July 19, 2024 | A faulty CrowdStrike sensor update crashed about 8.5 million Windows devices | TechCrunch, citing Microsoft |
| Oct 20, 2025 | AWS US-EAST-1 outage: DNS and DynamoDB failures disrupted services for about 15 hours | ThousandEyes |
| Oct 29, 2025 | Azure Front Door configuration change disrupted Microsoft cloud services for hours | ThousandEyes |
| Nov 18, 2025 | Cloudflare outage made many websites and apps unreachable | ThousandEyes |
One set of controls, evidence for every framework
The same 17 administrative controls answer the incident response and continuity requirements of the frameworks below. We build and test them once and map the evidence to each.
| Framework or rule | What it expects |
|---|---|
| NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3 and NIST CSF 2.0 | Incident response built into all six CSF functions: Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover |
| HIPAA Security Rule, 45 CFR 164.308(a)(6) and (a)(7) | Security incident procedures; contingency plan with data backup, disaster recovery and emergency mode operation plans; periodic testing |
| PCI DSS v4.0.1, Requirement 12.10 | An incident response plan ready to activate, reviewed and tested at least once every 12 months, with trained responders |
| SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria | CC7.3 to CC7.5 (evaluate, respond, recover) and availability criteria A1.2 and A1.3 (recovery and its testing) |
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A | 5.24 to 5.28 incident management, 5.29 security during disruption, 5.30 ICT readiness, 8.13 backup |
| FTC Safeguards Rule, 16 CFR 314.4(h) | A written incident response plan covering goals, processes, roles and decision authority, communications, remediation, documentation and plan revision |
| SEC Regulation S-P (2024 amendments) | A written incident response program and oversight of service providers that hold customer information |
| CCPA cybersecurity audit regulations | The audit covers how the business responds to security incidents and its business continuity and disaster recovery plans |
| Cyber insurance | Applications and renewals commonly ask for a written plan, tested backups and an incident contact process; terms vary by carrier |
Sources: NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3, 45 CFR 164.308, 16 CFR 314.4, Cal. Civ. Code 1798.82. This page is general information, not legal advice; your counsel decides which rules apply.
A read-only engagement in five steps
Scoping call
We confirm the service, your frameworks, your insurer and who should take part. 30 minutes.
Evidence request
A short list of documents and screenshots: plans, contact lists, backup reports, contracts.
Interviews
Short sessions with leadership and IT to see how decisions would really be made.
Scoring
Each control is rated with its evidence and mapped to your frameworks. Ali reviews every finding.
Report and roadmap
Reports and a prioritized roadmap, walked through with your owner and your IT lead.
What we do not promise
- We do not promise data retention periods, restore times or recovery outcomes. Recovery targets, retention and restore testing are discussed and agreed with you, and depend on your systems and providers.
- Our role is advisory. Decisions about your systems, and their operation, stay with you and your IT providers; engagement terms are set in a written proposal before work starts.
- We do not resell any application or product, so our recommendations stay vendor-neutral.
- Legal and notification decisions belong to your counsel. Litigation-grade forensic investigations are done by a qualified forensic firm engaged through your counsel.
Deliverables written as audit evidence
| Deliverable | What it contains | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Executive readiness report | Overall readiness, the top risks and what to fund first, in plain language | Owner, CEO, board |
| Control scorecard | All 17 controls with their rating and the evidence behind each | IT manager, compliance lead |
| Risk register | Business risks rated by likelihood and impact, each tied to its findings | Compliance, insurer, auditors |
| 90-day roadmap | Actions in order, with owners, so the most serious gaps close first | IT manager, vCISO |
| Framework mapping | Each control mapped to the frameworks you report against | Auditors, assessors |
Dealing with an incident right now?
Preserve evidence first: do not wipe or rebuild systems yet. Then call us and your insurer’s incident line.
Check where you stand in a few minutes
Initial guidance only; they do not replace an assessment.
Guided by Ali Hassani, CISO
Certified CISO (C|CISO) and CISSP with 25+ years in IT, cybersecurity, compliance and infrastructure, and dozens of Microsoft and Cisco certifications, including MCSE, MCITP, MCSA Security, CCNP and CCNA. Every engagement is evidence-based, so leadership, IT and outside counsel can act on the same facts.
Incident response questions
What do these services cost?
Each service is $3,500 fixed, and the Incident Advisory Retainer is $3,500 per month. The scope is confirmed in a written proposal before work starts.
Do you change anything in our systems?
No. Assessments and exercises are read-only: we review documents, interview your team and look at evidence you provide or read-only access you grant.
Do you guarantee recovery times or data restoration?
No. We do not promise data retention periods, restore times or recovery outcomes. Recovery targets, retention and restore testing are discussed and agreed with you, and depend on your systems and providers.
Can you help during an active incident?
Yes. Incident Response Advisory helps you preserve evidence, understand what is affected and coordinate with your counsel, insurer and IT team. Call 949-777-5567.
Which compliance requirements does this help with?
Written plans, tested recovery and the records that prove both, as expected by NIST CSF 2.0, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, ISO/IEC 27001, the FTC Safeguards Rule, SEC Regulation S-P, the CCPA cybersecurity audit regulations and most cyber insurance applications.
Do you sell backup or security software?
No. We do not resell any application or product, so recommendations stay vendor-neutral. If you want help with installation and ongoing support, IT Perfection can assist.
Are you a digital forensics firm?
No. We provide forensic readiness and evidence-preservation advisory. Litigation-grade forensic investigations are done by a qualified forensic firm engaged through your counsel.
From findings to working controls
OC Security Audit supports you through the audit. If you need it, IT Perfection, a managed IT business also owned by Ali Hassani, can help with installation and ongoing support. Using it is optional, and we do not resell any application or product.
Practice the bad day before it arrives
Schedule a consultation. We scope the right first step in 30 minutes and quote one fixed price.
Read-only, independent and vendor-neutral. On-site across Irvine, Orange County and Southern California; remote nationwide.