DISCUSSION FROM SOURCE: DRAFT NIST SP 800-171 R2
Organizations recognize that incident handling capability is dependent on the capabilities of
organizational systems and the mission/business processes being supported by those
systems. Organizations consider incident handling as part of the definition, design, and
development of mission/business processes and systems. Incident-related information can
be obtained from a variety of sources including audit monitoring, network monitoring,
physical access monitoring, user and administrator reports, and reported supply chain
events. Effective incident handling capability includes coordination among many
organizational entities including mission/business owners, system owners, authorizing
officials, human resources offices, physical and personnel security offices, legal departments,
operations personnel, procurement offices, and the risk executive.
As part of user response activities, incident response training is provided by organizations
and is linked directly to the assigned roles and responsibilities of organizational personnel
to ensure that the appropriate content and level of detail is included in such training. For
example, regular users may only need to know who to call or how to recognize an incident
on the system; system administrators may require additional training on how to handle or
remediate incidents; and incident responders may receive more specific training on
forensics, reporting, system recovery, and restoration. Incident response training includes
user training in the identification/reporting of suspicious activities from external and
internal sources. User response activities also includes incident response assistance which
may consist of help desk support, assistance groups, and access to forensics services or
consumer redress services, when required.
NIST SP 800-61 provides guidance on incident handling. SP 800-86 and SP 800-101 provide
guidance on integrating forensic techniques into incident response. SP 800-161 provides
guidance on supply chain risk management.
CMMC CLARIFICATION
Incident handling should include activities that prepare your organization to respond to
incidents. These activities may include the following:
• identify people inside and outside your organization you may need to contact during
an incident;
• establish a way to report incidents, such as an email address or a phone number;
• establish a system for tracking incidents; and
• determine a place and a way to store evidence of an incident.
You may need software and hardware to analyze incidents when they occur. You should also
consider incident prevention activities as part of your incident-handling capability. The
incident handling team provides input for such things as risk assessments and training.
Your organization should detect incidents in different ways. Use indicators to detect
incidents. Indicators are things that don’t look like what you expect. Examples include:
• alerts from your sensors or antivirus software;
• a filename that looks unusual; and
• a log entry that raises concern.
After you detect an incident, you should analyze it to decide what to do. To analyze an
incident, you need to know what should be occurring on your network and what should not.
This will help you determine when an incident may have occurred. It may also help you
decide what to do about it. You should also document what you know about the incident.
Include all the log entries associated with the incident in your documentation.
Containment of the incident is important. This stops the damage the incident is causing to
your network. You should base the containment activities you do off your incident analysis.
These activities can include:
• disconnecting a system from the internet; and
• changing firewall settings to stop an attack.
Recovery activities are things to fix that caused the incident. This will help prevent the
incident happening again. Recovery activities also include things that fix the affected
systems, including:
• restoring backup data; and
• reinstalling software.
User response activities include:
• performing a lessons-learned analysis;
• deciding if you should contact the police; and
• updating any policy or plans as a result of after incident analysis.
Example 1
Your manager asks you to set up your organization’s incident-response capability. First, you
create an email address to collect information on possible incidents. Next, you draft a contact
list of all the people in the organization who need to know when an incident occurs. Then,
you write down a procedure for how to submit incidents. This includes what everyone
should do when a potential incident is detected or reported. The procedure also explains
how to track incidents, from initial creation to closure.
Example 2
You receive an email alert about a possible incident. An employee identified a suspicious
email message as a phishing attempt. First, you document the incident in your incident
tracking system. Then, you immediately reference your defined procedures for handling
incidents. For example, you send an email to your employees alerting them not to open a
similar email. You also start collecting information around the reported incident.
Example 3
In response to the suspicious email, you perform a set of actions.
( 1 ) You reinstall the software on the machine of the user involved. This means that the
individual no longer has an infected machine.
( 2 ) You update your phishing protection software. This ensures that it can block the
latest phishing attacks.
( 3 ) You update your training material to emphasize the threat of phishing emails.
References
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev 1 3.6.1
• NIST CSF v1.1. RS.RP-1
• CERT RMM v1.2 IMC:SG1.SP1
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev 4 IR-2, IR-4