IT Incident Management Process

The comprehensive registry of all IT assets — servers, workstations, network devices, cloud instances, and installed software including hardware specifications, operating system versions, patch levels, warranty status, assigned owner, and the relationships between assets that form the configuration management database (CMDB).

The transactional record for each IT incident or service request — containing the reported issue, affected system, priority, category, assigned technician, resolution steps taken, time to resolution, root cause code, and user satisfaction rating tracked through the ITSM lifecycle.

The structured map of how IT systems interconnect — defining network segments, VLANs, firewall zones, cloud VPCs, load balancer configurations, DNS records, and the dependency chains that show which applications rely on which infrastructure components.

The managed record of each user's digital identity — containing authentication credentials, role assignments, group memberships, application entitlements, access request history, last login timestamps, and the privilege escalation audit trail maintained by identity and access management (IAM) systems.

The managed inventory of software entitlements — containing license types (perpetual, subscription, usage-based), quantities purchased, quantities deployed, renewal dates, cost per license, vendor contract references, and the compliance position showing over- or under-deployment per product.

The curated collection of known threat indicators, attack patterns, and vulnerability data — containing indicators of compromise (IOCs), Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs), threat actor profiles, attack technique mappings (MITRE ATT&CK), and the risk scores that contextualize threats to the organization's specific environment.

The recurring judgment point where IT operations evaluates which patches to deploy and in what order — weighing vulnerability severity (CVSS score), exploit availability, asset criticality, production impact risk, maintenance window constraints, and testing completion status.

The recurring judgment point where the security team determines the appropriate response to a detected threat — evaluating threat severity, confidence level, affected systems, containment options (isolate, block, quarantine), business impact of each response action, and the escalation criteria for invoking incident response plans.

The codified standard configurations for each asset class — defining approved OS versions, required security settings, mandatory agents, network configurations, and hardening standards (CIS benchmarks, STIG) that every system must comply with, along with the exception process for justified deviations.

The codified rules governing who may access which systems under what conditions — defining role-based access templates, separation-of-duties constraints, privileged access requirements (MFA, just-in-time), periodic review schedules, and the automatic deprovisioning triggers for terminated or transferred employees.