Control statement
Track and document incidents.
Discussion
Documenting incidents includes maintaining records about each incident, the status of the incident, and other pertinent information necessary for forensics as well as evaluating incident details, trends, and handling. Incident information can be obtained from a variety of sources, including network monitoring, incident reports, incident response teams, user complaints, supply chain partners, audit monitoring, physical access monitoring, and user and administrator reports. [IR-4](#ir-4) provides information on the types of incidents that are appropriate for monitoring.
From control text to operational evidence
Use Incident Monitoring as a testable risk decision. Translate the official statement into accountable people, repeatable processes, configured technology, and evidence that demonstrates the outcome over time. In this family, pay particular attention to prepared detection, coordinated response, analysis, reporting, and lessons learned.
Implementation workflow
- Define the control boundary, responsible owner, inherited portions, and systems or processes in scope.
- Resolve each organization-defined parameter before declaring the control implemented.
- Document how the implementation satisfies every clause of the official control statement.
- Collect evidence as a normal byproduct of operation rather than only before an assessment.
- Review exceptions, changes, and monitoring results on a risk-based cadence.
Evidence examples
- 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 current architecture
- unclear authority for containment decisions
- evidence lost during response
- lessons learned recorded but not implemented
Questions practitioners should ask
- What risk decision is this control intended to support in this system?
- Which parts are implemented locally, inherited, shared, or not applicable—and what evidence supports that decision?
- Do the documented narrative, deployed configuration, operating process, and collected evidence agree?
- What event or threshold requires the implementation to be reviewed or changed?
Assessment objectives and methods
Show the assessment objective
- IR-05[01]incidents are tracked;
- IR-05[02]incidents are documented.
Examine
- Incident response policy
- procedures addressing incident monitoring
- incident response records and documentation
- incident response plan
- system security plan
- privacy plan
- other relevant documents or records
Interview
- Organizational personnel with incident monitoring responsibilities
- organizational personnel with information security and privacy responsibilities
Test
- Incident monitoring capability for the organization
- mechanisms supporting and/or implementing the tracking and documenting of system security incidents
Related controls
These relationships come from the official OSCAL catalog. They indicate useful dependencies or context, not automatic inheritance or equivalence.
Control enhancements
Enhancements add specificity, strength, or scope to the base control. Baseline badges show explicit selections in the official SP 800-53B OSCAL profiles.
IR-5(1) — Automated Tracking, Data Collection, and Analysis
Track incidents and collect and analyze incident information using [Organization-defined: organization-defined automated mechanisms].
Official discussion
Automated mechanisms for tracking incidents and collecting and analyzing incident information include Computer Incident Response Centers or other electronic databases of incidents and network monitoring devices.
Organization-defined parameters (4)
Assessment objectives and methods
- IR-05(01)[01]incidents are tracked using [Organization-defined: automated mechanisms];
- IR-05(01)[02]incident information is collected using [Organization-defined: automated mechanisms];
- IR-05(01)[03]incident information is analyzed using [Organization-defined: automated mechanisms].
Examine
- Incident response policy
- procedures addressing incident monitoring
- incident response records and documentation
- system security plan
- incident response plan
- other relevant documents or records
Interview
- Organizational personnel with incident monitoring responsibilities
- organizational personnel with information security responsibilities
Test
- Incident monitoring capability for the organization
- automated mechanisms supporting and/or implementing the tracking and documenting of system security incidents
Authoritative sources
Bare Metal Cyber is an independent educational publisher and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NIST. Official control requirements and interpretations remain with NIST and the responsible authorizing organization.