A cryptographic policy defines how encryption, keys, certificates, and integrity mechanisms are used and managed across an organization. During incident response, that policy becomes a playbook for making safe, consistent decisions under pressure. It can specify how to rotate or revoke compromised keys, how to validate and reissue certificates, how to preserve evidence integrity with hashing, and how to securely communicate sensitive incident details (e.g., using approved encrypted channels). It can also define backup encryption requirements and key escrow or recovery procedures, enabling secure data recovery without exposing protected data. Policies typically outline roles and responsibilities (who can access keys, who can approve rekeying), logging requirements, and escalation steps—reducing confusion and preventing ad hoc crypto changes that might worsen exposure. The goal is not to limit encryption; it is to ensure cryptography is used correctly to contain and remediate incidents. Therefore, providing guidelines for secure recovery and communication is the correct contribution of cryptographic policy to incident response.