Microsoft uses the phrase, “protect, detect, respond and recover,” to help agencies formulate their cyber security strategy. I thought this was a really interesting way to view cyber security, and great starting point to think through a strategy.
Stage one is to protect – so stopping hackers from infiltrating and entering protected systems. Microsoft states that it is critical to have defenses that block malicious software and unauthorized access. The report also states, “In addition, baseline configuration standards must be established and monitored to prevent deviation and noncompliance that can create vulnerabilities in the system.”
Stage two is to detect, Microsoft states, “To effectively detect and deter cyber threats, monitoring and analysis tools must provide an overall picture of an environment’s security status. This means not only detecting attacks at the network perimeter but also identifying internal threats—whether suspicious activities or system weaknesses caused by drift away from defined security configurations.”
The third stage is to respond in the unfortunate event that your systems have been compromised. During this phases, you should have the tools, staff and resources ready to go so you can quickly assess and mitigate damages. The final step is recovery. This step is critical to getting systems back to speed and understanding how to protect and assess vulnerabilities in your system.
Most developed companies will not permit the third stage because the process of responding and recovering has consumed a whole lot of time, with that you have been considered a failure. A typical example was the unfortunate incident that happened to Seun of nairaland when the site was hacked, that period he used in the recovery process and the extra resources could have been converted to maximize efficiency of the site.
In summary, guide against mistakes which is the protection stage but if you cant because of the imperfect nature of human, try to detect as soon as possible, lastly respond and recover your loses.

Source; http://www.govloop.com/groups/productivity/forum/topic/4-stages-of-cybersecurity-protect-detect-respond-recover/