Incident management as a term refers to the procedure of restoring IT services after any disruption while still adhering to the SLA. Any disruption of production activities or normal business processes can be categorized as an incident, ranging from minor user issues to incidents with the potential for an organization-wide impact that must be mitigated as a priority. The incident management lifecycle begins with the end-user reporting the disruption and concludes with offering an effective remedy to the user, with the goal of preventing subsequent large disruptions.
According to ITIL best practices, the most essential goal of incident management is to establish normal service operations as soon as possible, limiting the detrimental impact on the business, while ensuring agreed levels of service quality are maintained. Addressing incidents timely and effectively is based on a strong feedback loop with the user base, in which timely reporting and cooperation can be vital.
What exactly is an incident?
An incident is an unanticipated occurrence that has a negative impact on the performance or quality of service and either threatens or actually disrupts operations. From user-facing issues with low impact, up to system-wide interferences of operations, also including external threats such as cyber-security incidents, such as phishing attempts, malware attacks, hacker attacks, data breaches, and so on, are among common examples that are on the rise.
The potential for damage to your environment by a cyber attack is ever-present. A cyber incident response plan is required to mitigate these risks. This enables you to reduce damages and costs if you are attacked, which is often considered to be a matter of when instead of “if”. But how do cybersecurity and rapid incident response fit into your existing (and presumably well-oiled) IT incident management machinery?
Interested in reading more about cybersecurity?
ITIL Incident Management – How Does it Fit in Cybersecurity Prevention?
The ITIL definition of incident management defines it as the process of incident identification, classification and prioritization, notification and escalation, investigation and diagnosis, resolution and recovery, and closure.
However, as technology advances and organizations become more reliant on it, IT systems must remain operational at all times, as often defined by uptime contractual obligations. Companies must forge a new relationship between the teams due to the complexities of today’s IT environments and the sharpness of cybercriminals. This entails investigating the people, processes, and technologies of both operations to determine how they can collaborate more effectively.
Identification
The first step in the IM process is for the end user to report the incident through the appropriate channels established by the IT team. If you receive an incident through a dedicated troubleticketing system, it means that it has been automatically identified and logged, and the SD team has moved on to the next step – classification. If, on the other hand, SD receives the incident report via phone call, it is their responsibility to first log it into the system before proceeding to the next step.
Classification and Prioritization
Once incidents have been identified, they must be classified or segmented using appropriate categories. The person/system who reported it, the exact time and a description of the failure that the incident caused must all be included in the incident categorization. It is critical to collect this data in one location because it aids communication, prevents duplicate tickets from being opened, and keeps the system from becoming overloaded.
Every incident that arises to the Service Desk’s attention must be adequately prioritized. Prioritization is determined by combining the level of urgency of the incident with the impact the incident has on operations.
Notification and escalation
If the issue necessitates advanced-level technical assistance or technical assistance from another group, the Service Desk will escalate the ticket to the line manager or an advanced-level support team member. When an issue is escalated, Service Desk Team Members are responsible for notifying the requestor.
Investigation and diagnosis
After prioritizing the incident and making initial contact with the customer, you must investigate the root cause of the incident and the path to its resolution.
Resolution and recovery
Once the incident has been fully understood, ITIL incident resolution and recovery are carried out. Finding a resolution to an incident means that a solution to the problem has been identified. The recovery phase is the act of putting the resolution into action.
Closure
The service desk handles ITIL incident closure. It is the last step in the incident management process and consists of several activities.
Among the activities that must be completed is verification of the initial categorization assigned to the incident and a satisfaction survey of the end user regarding how the incident was handled (note: satisfaction surveys will not be performed for every incident, but for a predetermined percentage of incidents logged).
The managers who run the service in our company are ITIL certified, so our company adheres to the ITIL standard.
Resources:
https://www.itil-docs.com/blogs/news/what-is-incident-management
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