Incident management is the process of detecting, responding to, documenting and investigating incidents across the organization. It’s an essential aspect of security risk management as it aims to mitigate against risks with high probability impact towards the organization assets.
The benefits of Incident management towards effective security risk management includes:-
Mitigating potential risks – Effective incident management aids the security function to identify and respond to potential threats before they escalate.
Ensures safety – Incident management is a critical tool towards ensuring the safety of staff, stakeholders etc. This is because by promptly responding to incidents security personnel or related first responders can take appropriate steps to protect people from harm and prevent injuries.
Minimizes damage and loss – Quick response in incident management helps to minimize the damage and loss that may occur from an incident.
Maintains business continuity – When steps are taken to limit the extent of disruption to business operations, critical business functions continue or resume operations uninterrupted.
Enhances investigation outcome – Effective incident management entails conducting a thorough investigation into the incident to identify the root cause, assess any damage or losses, and gather evidence for potential disciplinary or legal action.
Strategic response – Incident management enhances the ability to leverage insights from data analysis to create and execute action plans to reduce the frequency and severity of future incidents.
Enhances reporting – It improves and enhances communication to stakeholders of impact of incidents to the organization thus presenting the opportunity to drive improvement through investment of essential mitigating systems and strategies.
The steps that constitutes effective incident management process include:
Planning and preparing – This entails defining the threats your organization is already facing or likely to face. Identify risks with high likelihood to occur and high probability of impact should they occur. For accuracy collect robust incident reports and other observations from stakeholders to ensure the information/data needed to prevent and respond to incidents is available.
Creating prompt response mechanism – Response is an organization’s best line of defence as it’s the critical point of threat neutralization or apprehension. First response should entail the ability to consistently respond to an incident to minimize the immediate impact and collect the information necessary to minimize ancillary impact. Create and develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) in advance and effectively train security and safety responders. Incorporate an emergency notification system where applicable. Be sure to include emergency, evacuation procedures and protocols where applicable.
Documentation and data analysis – This entails documenting what happened in an incident. A thorough record of activities that took place should be captured. Perform a root cause analysis to examine potential sources that should include human or system error. This step is also ideal for summarizing any corrective actions and insights learned relevant to the organization’s objectives.
Detailed investigation – This is where a deep delve into the process is required. Gather evidence from witnesses, monitor evidence, evaluate available data to get to the bottom of what happened and why, as well as how to prevent reoccurrences.