Mapped to NIST 800-171 Requirement: 3.6.1
CMMC Assessment Objective: IR.L2-3.6.1[a]
What This Objective Means
Before you can respond to an incident, you must know what your response process looks like.
This includes having a documented plan that outlines:
• What constitutes an incident
• How incidents are reported
• Who is responsible for triage, escalation, containment, and recovery
• What tools or workflows support response activities
• How you protect CUI during an incident
The plan should be well-defined, actionable, and specific to your systems and threat environment.
Why It Matters
Without an incident response plan:
• Teams may respond inconsistently or incorrectly
• Critical steps (e.g., containment, evidence preservation) may be skipped
• Regulatory reporting deadlines could be missed
• CUI could be exposed longer than necessary
• You may fail an audit for lack of preparedness
This control ensures you’re not caught off guard when an incident occurs.
How to Implement It
1. Define What Qualifies as an Incident
• Include things like malware infection, unauthorized access, data loss, or policy violations
2. Outline Roles and Responsibilities
• Assign roles: Incident Handler, Communications Lead, System Owner, Legal Contact, etc.
3. Document Key Steps in Your IR Workflow
• Detection
• Reporting
• Triage
• Containment
• Eradication
• Recovery
• Root cause analysis
• Post-incident review
4. Map Tools and Communication Paths
• Identify where incidents are logged and tracked (e.g., ticketing, SIEM, spreadsheets)
• Document how notifications are escalated (email, Teams, phone trees)
5. Include Reporting Requirements
• DFARS or other regulatory notifications if CUI is involved
• External reporting protocols if applicable
Evidence the Assessor Will Look For
• A documented incident response plan or playbook
• Defined roles and responsibilities
• Incident categories and severity levels
• Communication workflows
• Diagrams or documentation showing step-by-step process
Common Gaps
• IR plan is missing or overly generic
• No assignment of responsibility for IR actions
• Response procedures aren’t aligned with actual technology in use
• No reference to handling incidents involving CUI
How Cuick Trac Helps
Cuick Trac supports this requirement by:
• Providing a structured incident response framework aligned with NIST and CMMC
• Including playbooks and workflows specific to enclave environments
• Supporting ticketing and escalation for incident triage and management
• Helping define reporting procedures for incidents involving CUI
• Offering documentation templates for roles, severity levels, and action steps
With Cuick Trac, incident response becomes a repeatable, auditable process—not an improvised reaction.
Final CTA
The time to plan for an incident is before it happens.
Schedule a Cuick Trac demo and see how we support effective, compliant incident response planning.