Policy and Procedures

Incident response policy and procedures address the controls in the IR family that are implemented within systems and organizations. The risk management strategy is an important factor in establishing such policies and procedures. Policies and procedures contribute to security and privacy assurance. Therefore, it is important that security and privacy programs collaborate on the development of incident response policy and procedures. Security and privacy program policies and procedures at the organization level are preferable, in general, and may obviate the need for mission- or system-specific policies and procedures. The policy can be included as part of the general security and privacy policy or be represented by multiple policies that reflect the complex nature of organizations. Procedures can be established for security and privacy programs, for mission or business processes, and for systems, if needed. Procedures describe how the policies or controls are implemented and can be directed at the individual or role that is the object of the procedure. Procedures can be documented in system security and privacy plans or in one or more separate documents. Events that may precipitate an update to incident response policy and procedures include assessment or audit findings, security incidents or breaches, or changes in laws, executive orders, directives, regulations, policies, standards, and guidelines. Simply restating controls does not constitute an organizational policy or procedure.

an incident response policy is developed and documented; the incident response policy is disseminated to personnel or roles; incident response procedures to facilitate the implementation of the incident response policy and associated incident response controls are developed and documented; the incident response procedures are disseminated to personnel or roles; the one or more: organization-level; mission/business process-level; system-level incident response policy addresses purpose; the one or more: organization-level; mission/business process-level; system-level incident response policy addresses scope; the one or more: organization-level; mission/business process-level; system-level incident response policy addresses roles; the one or more: organization-level; mission/business process-level; system-level incident response policy addresses responsibilities; the one or more: organization-level; mission/business process-level; system-level incident response policy addresses management commitment; the one or more: organization-level; mission/business process-level; system-level incident response policy addresses coordination among organizational entities; the one or more: organization-level; mission/business process-level; system-level incident response policy addresses compliance; the one or more: organization-level; mission/business process-level; system-level incident response policy is consistent with applicable laws, Executive Orders, directives, regulations, policies, standards, and guidelines; the official is designated to manage the development, documentation, and dissemination of the incident response policy and procedures; the current incident response policy is reviewed and updated frequency; the current incident response policy is reviewed and updated following events; the current incident response procedures are reviewed and updated frequency; the current incident response procedures are reviewed and updated following events.