Security requirement
Establish and maintain an integrated incident response team that can be deployed to any location identified by the organization in [Organization-defined: time period].
Discussion
An integrated incident response team is a group of individuals who assess, document, and respond to incidents so that organizational systems and networks can recover quickly and implement the necessary controls to avoid future incidents. Incident response team personnel include forensic and malicious code analysts, tool developers, systems security engineers, and real-time operations personnel. The incident handling capability includes performing rapid forensic preservation of evidence and analysis of and response to intrusions. An integrated incident response team facilitates information sharing and allows organizational personnel (e.g., developers, implementers, and operators) to leverage team knowledge of the threat and implement defensive measures that enable organizations to deter intrusions more effectively. Moreover, integrated teams promote the rapid detection of intrusions, the development of appropriate mitigations, and the deployment of effective defensive measures. Integrated incident response teams are better able to identify adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures that are linked to the operations tempo or specific mission and business functions and to define responsive actions in a way that does not disrupt those mission and business functions. Incident response teams can be distributed within organizations to make the capability resilient. For some organizations, the incident response team can be a cross-organizational entity. This requirement enhances SP 800-171 requirement 03.06.01.
Tailoring decisions required
Resolve these values through the governing organization’s approved tailoring and risk-management process before declaring the requirement implemented.
Protection strategies supported
These classifications are carried from the official SP 800-172 OSCAL record and help explain the enhanced requirement’s defensive purpose.
Implementation perspective
Treat Integrated Incident Response Team as an enhanced CUI protection outcome for elevated threat conditions that must be reflected in the system boundary, documented implementation, operational behavior, and assessment evidence. Pay particular attention to prepared detection, coordinated response, reporting, recovery, and lessons learned for incidents involving CUI.
- Confirm the federal agency selected this enhanced requirement for the critical program or high-value asset and identify the CUI system components, services, users, and external connections in scope.
- Resolve every organization-defined parameter through an approved governance and tailoring process.
- Map each clause of the requirement to an accountable owner, implementation mechanism, and evidence source.
- Verify that inherited and shared implementations are supported by current provider evidence and responsibility boundaries.
- Collect evidence during normal operation and review changes, exceptions, and deficiencies on a risk-based cadence.
Questions to ask
- Which critical-program or high-value-asset CUI, data flows, users, and services are protected by this enhanced requirement?
- Which portions are implemented locally, inherited, shared, or not applicable, and what evidence supports that determination?
- Do the system security plan, deployed configuration, operating process, and assessment evidence tell the same story?
- What change, incident, or threshold should trigger reassessment?
Evidence and validation
- incident response plans and playbooks
- case records and timelines
- exercise and tabletop results
- lessons-learned and corrective-action tracking
Common failure patterns
- plans that do not match the current architecture
- unclear authority for containment decisions
- evidence lost during response
- lessons learned recorded but not implemented
Assessment objectives and methods
Assessment objectives (3)
an integrated incident response team is established.
an integrated incident response team is maintained.
the integrated incident response team can be deployed to any location identified by the organization in [Organization-defined: time period].
Examine
- Incident response policy
- procedures addressing incident handling
- procedures addressing incident response planning
- incident response plan
- system security plan
- other relevant documents or records
Interview
- Personnel with incident handling responsibilities
- personnel with information security responsibilities
- members of the integrated incident response team
Source NIST SP 800-53 controls
These controls are referenced by the official SP 800-172 Rev. 3 OSCAL record. Open the corresponding control pages for complete control text, enhancements, D3FEND mappings, and related learning.
Authoritative sources
- NIST SP 800-172 Revision 3 official publication ↗
- NIST SP 800-172A Revision 3 official publication ↗
- NIST OSCAL Content release used for this import ↗
Bare Metal Cyber is an independent educational publisher and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NIST. The official publications, the responsible federal agency, and the governing contract or agreement determine applicability, tailoring, assessment depth, and required implementation.