What is the primary goal of incident response?

The primary goal of incident response is to minimize damage and restore operations. This involves a structured approach to dealing with incidents that may compromise the security of an organization. When an incident occurs, the focus shifts to managing the situation effectively to reduce the impact on the organization's operations and protect its assets.

Minimizing damage involves implementing immediate actions to contain the incident, thereby preventing further loss or escalation. This is critical to preserving the integrity of systems and data. Additionally, restoring operations involves taking steps to bring affected systems back online and ensuring that business functions resume as quickly as possible. This may include recovering data, applying patches, and enhancing security measures to prevent future incidents.

While preventing all incidents is a noble goal, it is not feasible in practice; incidents can still occur despite the best preventative measures. Identifying the source of an incident is a part of the incident response process but not the primary aim, as understanding the attack vector typically comes after initial containment and damage control. Ensuring compliance with regulations is essential but often secondary to the immediate need to address and mitigate the incident's effects. Therefore, the emphasis in incident response is on managing and mitigating the impact of incidents effectively, which is reflected in the chosen answer.