The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued the Cybersecurity Incident & Vulnerability Response Playbooks: Operational Procedures for Planning and Conducting Cybersecurity Incident and Vulnerability Response Activities in FCEB Information Systems (Playbooks) on November 16, 2021, designed to assist Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) Information Systems agencies in adopting a standard set of procedures related to incident and vulnerability responses.

The two playbooks, which are designed for federal systems but “may be useful for organizations outside of the FCEB to standardize incident response practices,” provide “FCEB agencies with a standard set of procedures to identify, coordinate, remediate, recover, and track successful mitigations from incidents and vulnerabilities affecting FCEB systems, data, and networks.”

The processes outlined in the Playbooks:

  • Facilitate better coordination and effective response among affected  organizations;
  • Enable tracking of cross-organizational successful actions;
  • Allow for cataloging of incidents to better manage future events; and
  • Guide analysis and discovery.

According to CISA, the playbooks “apply to all FCEB agencies, information systems used or operated by an agency, a contractor of an agency, or another organization on behalf of an agency.”

Although the playbooks are designed for FCEB agencies, organizations may wish to review the playbooks to get ideas of a framework for their own organizations if incident response and vulnerability playbooks have not been developed and implemented.