Incident Response Lifecycle

Incident response process management following the NIST 800-61 lifecycle. Covers severity classification, escalation matrices, role assignment, communication management, phased recovery coordination, blameless post-mortem facilitation, and 5-whys root cause analysis. Scoped to the process and coordination layer — for network-level evidence collection and forensic analysis, use incident-response-network instead.

Structured process management for network incidents from detection through post-incident review. This skill covers the organizational coordination layer: severity classification, escalation, role assignment, stakeholder communication, recovery coordination, and root cause analysis. It does not cover technical evidence collection, device forensics, or containment execution — use the incident-response-network skill for network-level evidence gathering and forensic analysis.

The procedure follows the operational lifecycle shape: detect and classify the incident, triage and escalate to the right people, coordinate the investigation across teams, manage communications to all audiences, drive resolution and recovery, then conduct a blameless post-incident review.

See references/communication-templates.md for notification templates by audience and severity level. See references/rca-framework.md for the 5-whys methodology, fishbone diagram guidance, and post-mortem document structure.

When to Use

• Service-affecting incident declared — a P1 or P2 event requires formal incident management with role assignment and communications
• Escalation decision needed — determining who to notify at what severity level and when to engage vendor support or management
• Multi-team coordination required — investigation spans network, security, application, and infrastructure teams needing a single command structure
• Customer or regulatory notification required — incident has external communication obligations (SLA breach, data exposure, regulatory reporting)
• Post-incident review facilitation — scheduling, structuring, and running blameless post-mortems with 5-whys root cause analysis
• Incident metrics reporting — collecting MTTD, MTTI, MTTR, and recurrence data for continuous improvement

Prerequisites

• Incident management authority — the person initiating this process must have authorization to declare incidents and assign roles within the organization
• Contact directory — current on-call rosters, escalation contacts for management, vendor TAC numbers, and regulatory notification contacts must be accessible
• Communication channels — bridge call infrastructure (conference line or collaboration tool), status page access, and email distribution lists for each stakeholder group must be established
• Incident tracking system — a ticketing system to record the incident, track actions, and maintain the timeline of events
• Defined severity criteria — organizational agreement on what constitutes P1 through P4 severity (see Threshold Tables below for a reference framework)

Procedure

Follow these six steps in sequence. Steps 3 and 4 run in parallel once roles are assigned — investigation coordination and communication management proceed simultaneously. Each step references templates from references/communication-templates.md and methodology from references/rca-framework.md where applicable.

Step 1: Detection and Classification

Classify the incident by severity, type, and scope to determine the appropriate response level.

Severity assignment — apply the P1–P4 taxonomy from the Threshold Tables section. Base severity on the highest-impact criterion met. When multiple criteria apply at different levels, the highest governs.

Incident type classification — categorize as outage (service unavailable), degradation (reduced capacity), security (unauthorized access or data exposure), or data loss (corruption or deletion).

Scope determination — assess whether the incident affects a single device, a network segment, an entire site, or multiple sites. Scope drives staffing, communication breadth, and recovery complexity.

Initial impact assessment — estimate affected user count, impacted services and their business criticality, data at risk, and revenue impact per hour. Record estimates in the incident ticket.

Step 2: Triage and Escalation

Assign roles, notify stakeholders, and set response timeline expectations based on the severity classification from Step 1.

Role assignment — every P1 or P2 incident needs four named roles: Incident Commander (IC) — owns the incident end-to-end and makes escalation decisions; Technical Lead — coordinates diagnostics and synthesizes findings; Communications Lead — drafts stakeholder notifications and manages the status page; Scribe — maintains the real-time timeline and records bridge call decisions. For P3, IC and Technical Lead may be combined. P4 uses normal operations workflows.

Escalation matrix execution — notify by severity: P1 — all four roles plus engineering management, VP/director on-call, vendor TAC if vendor equipment is involved, executive notification within 30 minutes. P2 — all four roles plus engineering management within 1 hour. P3 — Technical Lead plus team lead within 4 hours. P4 — assigned engineer via normal ticket queue.

Response timeline expectations: P1 — bridge in 15 minutes, first update in 30 minutes, then every 30 minutes. P2 — bridge in 30 minutes, first update in 1 hour, then every 2 hours. P3 — initial assessment in 4 hours, daily updates. P4 — acknowledgment within 1 business day.

Vendor engagement criteria — engage vendor TAC when the incident involves hardware failure, software defects requiring patches, or when internal triage has not identified root cause within the severity time window.

Step 3: Investigation Coordination

Coordinate the technical investigation across teams and evidence sources. For network-level evidence collection (device state, routing tables, interface data, log retrieval), reference the incident-response-network skill — this step focuses on organizing the investigation, not executing forensic commands.

Evidence collection tasking — assign team members to collect evidence from relevant domains: network devices (via incident-response-network procedures), application logs, infrastructure metrics, and security tooling alerts. Each assignee reports findings to the Technical Lead.

Parallel investigation streams — for complex incidents, run multiple investigation threads simultaneously. Common parallel tracks: (1) symptom analysis — what is failing and for whom, (2) change correlation — what changed recently (deployments, config modifications, maintenance), (3) external factors — upstream provider issues, DDoS, DNS resolution failures.

Hypothesis tracking — maintain a running list of hypotheses with current status (investigating, confirmed, ruled out). Each hypothesis should have an owner and a validation method. Update the list on every bridge call.

Timeline of events (ToE) — the Scribe maintains a running chronological log of when events occurred, when they were detected, what actions were taken, and what was discovered. The ToE becomes the foundation for the post-incident review in Step 6.

Subject matter expert engagement — when investigation stalls or enters an unfamiliar domain, escalate to specialists. Define clear handoff: what has been tried, what data is available, and what specific question needs answering.

Step 4: Communication Management

Manage stakeholder communications throughout the incident. Use the templates in references/communication-templates.md for consistent messaging across audiences.

Stakeholder notification by audience — executive summary (business impact, estimated resolution, customer exposure — no technical detail), technical detail (root cause hypothesis, diagnostics, remediation plan — delivered on bridge call), customer-facing (service impact, workaround if available, estimated resolution — via status page), regulatory (formal notification per compliance framework when required). Use templates from references/communication-templates.md.

Status update cadence — follow severity-based cadence from Step 2. Each update includes: current status, progress since last update, next planned action, and revised time-to-resolution estimate.

Bridge call management — the IC runs calls with a fixed agenda: (1) technical status from Tech Lead, (2) communication status from Comms Lead, (3) hypothesis updates, (4) decisions needed, (5) action items with owners and deadlines. Keep calls focused — park side discussions as action items.

External notification requirements — track regulatory reporting deadlines, law enforcement notification when criminal activity is suspected, customer SLA breach notification per contractual terms, and vendor escalation for ongoing support.

Step 5: Resolution and Recovery

Drive service restoration through validated recovery steps with monitoring to confirm the fix holds.

Recovery validation criteria — before declaring resolved, confirm: (1) service health checks return normal for all affected components, (2) monitoring dashboards show green for at least 15 minutes (P1) or 30 minutes (P2), (3) no new related alerts during observation, (4) affected users confirm restoration (sample check for large populations).

Phased restoration — for multi-layer network incidents, restore in order: core infrastructure → distribution layer → access layer → end-to-end verification. Verify each phase before proceeding. Do not restore all layers simultaneously — cascading failures during recovery are worse than a phased approach.

Back-out plan execution — if the fix causes new issues, execute the pre-defined rollback. Every remediation action should have a documented rollback method before execution.

Enhanced monitoring period — maintain heightened monitoring after resolution: P1 for 24 hours, P2 for 12 hours, P3 through the next business day. This means reduced alert thresholds on affected systems, active watch by on-call, and immediate re-escalation if symptoms recur.

Incident closure — send closure notification to all stakeholders (template in references/communication-templates.md). Update the ticket with resolution summary, total duration, and final impact. Schedule the post-incident review.

Step 6: Post-Incident Review

Conduct a blameless post-incident review to identify root cause, contributing factors, and improvement actions. See references/rca-framework.md for the full methodology.

Scheduling — hold the post-mortem within 72 hours of incident resolution while details are fresh. Invite all incident participants plus relevant stakeholders. Send the invitation using the template in references/communication-templates.md.

5-whys root cause analysis — apply iteratively: for each "why" answer, ask "why" again until reaching a systemic root cause (typically 3–5 iterations). See references/rca-framework.md for worked examples and facilitation guidance.

Contributing factor categorization — classify each contributing factor as process (missing runbook, unclear escalation path), people (training gap, staffing shortage), or technology (monitoring gap, single point of failure, software defect). This categorization guides the type of remediation action needed.

Action item classification — assign each action item one of four dispositions: fix (eliminate the root cause), mitigate (reduce likelihood or impact), accept (risk is within tolerance, document rationale), or transfer (assign to another team or vendor). Every fix or mitigate action must have an owner, due date, and verification method.

Incident metrics — collect and record: Mean Time to Detect (MTTD), Mean Time to Investigate (MTTI), Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR), total incident duration, number of customers affected, and whether this is a recurrence of a previous incident. Track these metrics over time to measure improvement trends.

Threshold Tables

Severity Classification Matrix

Severity	User Impact	Service Impact	Data Risk	Response SLA
P1 Critical	>50% of users or all VIP users	Complete outage of revenue-generating service	Confirmed data breach or loss	Bridge in 15 min, updates every 30 min
P2 High	10–50% of users affected	Major degradation or redundancy loss on critical path	Suspected data exposure	Bridge in 30 min, updates every 2 hr
P3 Medium	<10% of users, workaround exists	Partial degradation, non-critical service	No data risk identified	Assessment in 4 hr, updates daily
P4 Low	Minimal or no user impact	Cosmetic, non-production, or fully redundant	None	Ack in 1 business day

Escalation and Role Matrix

Severity	Incident Commander	Technical Lead	Comms Lead	Scribe	Management	Executive
P1	Required	Required	Required	Required	Immediate	Within 30 min
P2	Required	Required	Required	Optional	Within 1 hr	If SLA breached
P3	Combined with Tech Lead	Required	Optional	No	Within 4 hr	No
P4	No	Assigned engineer	No	No	Normal reporting	No

Enhanced Monitoring Duration

Severity	Monitoring Period	Alert Threshold	Re-escalation Trigger
P1	24 hours	Reduced by 20%	Any recurrence symptom
P2	12 hours	Reduced by 10%	Same failure signature
P3	Next business day	Normal thresholds	Identical alert
P4	None	Normal	Normal process

Decision Trees

Incident Severity Assignment

text

Event detected or reported
├── Is the service completely unavailable?
│   ├── Yes → Is it a revenue-generating or safety-critical service?
│   │   ├── Yes → P1 Critical
│   │   └── No → P2 High
│   └── No → Service is partially available
│       ├── Are more than 10% of users affected without workaround?
│       │   ├── Yes → P2 High
│       │   └── No → Is there a workaround available?
│       │       ├── Yes → P3 Medium
│       │       └── No, but fewer than 10% of users → P3 Medium
│       └── Is this a non-production or cosmetic issue?
│           └── Yes → P4 Low
├── Is there confirmed or suspected data exposure?
│   ├── Confirmed breach → P1 Critical (regardless of service status)
│   └── Suspected exposure → P2 High minimum
└── Has redundancy been lost on a critical path?
    ├── Yes, no failover remaining → P2 High
    └── Yes, failover still available → P3 Medium

Escalation Decision

text

Severity assigned
├── P1 or P2?
│   ├── Yes → Assign all four roles immediately
│   │   ├── Is vendor equipment involved in the failure?
│   │   │   ├── Yes → Open vendor TAC case immediately
│   │   │   └── No → Internal investigation first
│   │   └── Has root cause been identified within time window?
│   │       ├── P1: not identified within 30 min → Escalate to next tier
│   │       └── P2: not identified within 2 hr → Escalate to next tier
│   └── P3 or P4?
│       ├── P3 → Assign Technical Lead, monitor for escalation
│       │   └── Impact worsening? → Re-classify severity upward
│       └── P4 → Normal ticket queue, no escalation
└── At any point: if scope expands beyond initial classification
    └── Re-evaluate severity from Step 1, escalate if needed

Report Template

text

INCIDENT REPORT
=====================================
Incident ID:          [ticket/tracking number]
Severity:             [P1/P2/P3/P4]
Incident Commander:   [name]
Duration:             [detection time] — [resolution time] ([total hours])
Status:               [Resolved / Monitoring / Under Review]

IMPACT SUMMARY:
  Users Affected:     [count or percentage]
  Services Affected:  [list of impacted services]
  Revenue Impact:     [estimated or confirmed]
  Data Impact:        [none / suspected / confirmed — description]

TIMELINE OF EVENTS:
| # | Time (UTC) | Event | Actor | Notes |
|---|-----------|-------|-------|-------|
| 1 | [time] | [event description] | [person/system] | [context] |

ROOT CAUSE:
  Category:           [Process / People / Technology]
  Root Cause:         [description from 5-whys analysis]
  Contributing Factors:
    - [factor 1 — category]
    - [factor 2 — category]

RESOLUTION:
  Fix Applied:        [description of what resolved the incident]
  Validated By:       [how resolution was confirmed]
  Back-out Available: [yes/no — description]

METRICS:
  MTTD:               [time from occurrence to detection]
  MTTI:               [time from detection to root cause identified]
  MTTR:               [time from detection to resolution]
  Recurrence:         [yes/no — reference to prior incident if yes]

ACTION ITEMS:
| # | Action | Type | Owner | Due Date | Status |
|---|--------|------|-------|----------|--------|
| 1 | [action] | [Fix/Mitigate/Accept/Transfer] | [name] | [date] | [status] |

POST-MORTEM STATUS:
  Scheduled:          [date/time or "pending"]
  Attendees:          [roles invited]
  Document Location:  [link to post-mortem document]

Troubleshooting

Severity Disagreement Between Teams

Symptom: Teams classify the same incident at different severity levels, causing confusion about response urgency.

Resolution: The IC makes the final determination using the Threshold Tables criteria. The highest applicable severity governs. Document rationale in the ticket. If the IC is not yet assigned, the first responder sets initial severity and the IC may adjust.

Escalation Fatigue and Alert Noise

Symptom: Frequent P1/P2 declarations for issues that resolve quickly, eroding trust in severity classification.

Resolution: Review severity criteria quarterly. Track the false-positive rate (incidents downgraded after initial classification). If P1 downgrade rate exceeds 30%, tighten P1 criteria. Ensure P3/P4 incidents are not over-classified.

Post-Mortem Action Items Not Completed

Symptom: Action items accumulate but are not completed, leading to recurring incidents from known causes.

Resolution: Assign every action item an owner and due date at the review. Track completion in the incident system, not separate documents. Review open items in weekly standups. Escalate overdue items to management and report completion rates alongside MTTD/MTTR.

Communication Gaps During Extended Incidents

Symptom: Status updates become infrequent during long incidents (>4 hours), leaving stakeholders uninformed.

Resolution: The Communications Lead maintains cadence regardless of investigation progress. If no new findings exist, state that explicitly in the update. For incidents exceeding 8 hours, rotate the Comms Lead role to prevent fatigue.

Incident Recurrence After Resolution

Symptom: The same incident recurs after being marked resolved.

Resolution: Check whether prior post-mortem action items were completed. If yes, the root cause analysis was incomplete — reconvene with broader scope. If not, escalate the completion failure. Tag the new incident as a recurrence and increase severity by one level to reflect accumulated impact.