What is a critical aspect of the step 'Keep an incident response team ready'?

The critical aspect of keeping an incident response team ready is ensuring that they preserve evidence according to protocol. This step is vital because, during an incident response, maintaining the integrity and admissibility of evidence is paramount. Proper preservation techniques prevent evidence degradation or loss, ensuring that what is collected can be used in legal proceedings if necessary.

Preserving evidence according to established protocols minimizes the risk of contamination and ensures that the evidence remains viable for further analysis. This includes following procedures for storage, handling, and transportation of evidence, which are essential to uphold its integrity.

While creating evidence extraction procedures, maintaining a chain of evidence, and documenting incident details are important components of the overall incident response process, the primary focus of keeping an incident response team ready is to ensure that they can effectively preserve evidence in compliance with legal and procedural requirements. This foundational step sets the stage for further investigation and analysis, making it critical to the incident response framework.