IR-4(3): Continuity of Operations

IR-4(3) requires you to pre-identify which security incidents could disrupt mission/business functions and to execute documented incident-response actions that keep critical services running through the event. Operationalize it by defining “COOP-triggering incidents,” mapping them to service-level continuity actions (failover, degraded-mode operations, manual workarounds), and retaining evidence that you practiced those actions. ¹

Key takeaways:

• Define “continuity-impacting incidents” up front and make them part of your incident classification/triage. ¹
• For each such incident, pre-stage playbooks that keep priority services operating (even in a reduced mode) while response/containment proceeds. ¹
• Evidence matters: assessors will look for mappings, runbooks, exercises, and incident records proving continuity actions were executed. ²

The ir-4(3): continuity of operations requirement sits at the seam between incident response and business continuity. Many programs treat those as separate lanes: IR focuses on containment and eradication, while BC/DR focuses on recovery after an outage. IR-4(3) forces you to close that gap by planning for incidents where “responding” must happen while the organization continues delivering essential functions.

Practically, this means two things for a Compliance Officer, CCO, or GRC lead. First, you must define a specific set of incidents that, by their nature, threaten continuity (ransomware, identity compromise of privileged accounts, destructive malware, cloud control-plane compromise, critical supplier outage, and similar events). Second, you must pre-define the continuity actions your responders will take during those incidents so that business functions can continue in some form, even if that form is degraded.

This page gives requirement-level implementation guidance you can drop into your control library, assign to an owner, and test. It also calls out the audit traps: vague incident categories, untestable runbooks, and “we have a DR plan” answers that do not demonstrate continuity actions during an incident.

Regulatory text

NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 control enhancement IR-4(3) states: “Identify [organization-defined incidents] and take the following actions in response to those incidents to ensure continuation of organizational mission and business functions: [organization-defined actions].” ¹

What the operator must do

You must:

1. Define which incident types are “continuity of operations” incidents for your environment (the control intentionally leaves this to you). ¹
2. Define the actions responders and operators will take during those incidents to keep mission/business functions operating (not merely to restore later). ¹
3. Be able to show execution and testing, because “identify” and “take actions” are operational verbs that assessors will validate through artifacts and interviews. ²

Plain-English interpretation (what IR-4(3) is really asking)

IR-4(3) asks: “If we’re under cyber attack or in a major security incident, how do we keep the lights on safely?”

That typically means:

• Running critical services in a degraded but controlled mode (read-only, limited features, reduced transaction limits).
• Failing over to clean environments while containment continues.
• Switching to manual procedures for the highest-priority workflows.
• Temporarily blocking risky integrations (including third parties) while maintaining core operations.

You are not required to guarantee zero disruption. You are required to plan and perform continuity actions for incidents you have determined could disrupt mission and business functions. ¹

Who it applies to (entity and operational context)

IR-4(3) is part of NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 and is commonly applied in:

• Federal information systems and programs inheriting federal requirements. ²
• Contractor systems handling federal data, where NIST 800-53 controls flow down through contracts, ATO packages, or agency security requirements. ¹

Operationally, it applies wherever an incident can interrupt delivery of:

• Public-facing digital services
• Internal mission systems (finance, operations, manufacturing, case management)
• Regulated processing environments (e.g., systems supporting compliance obligations)

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

Step 1: Assign ownership and define scope (control-level)

• Control owner: Usually Incident Response lead (SOC/IR) with shared accountability from BC/DR owner and the service owner(s).
• Scope: Your “mission and business functions” should map to a defined set of critical services (apps, platforms, and supporting infrastructure).

Output: IR-4(3) control statement that names the owner, in-scope services, and how “COOP incidents” are identified. ¹

Step 2: Define “COOP-triggering” incident categories (your required parameter)

Create a short list of incident categories that, if they occur, require continuity actions. Keep it specific enough to be testable.

A practical taxonomy:

• Ransomware or widespread malware affecting production systems
• Identity compromise involving privileged access (IdP, PAM, cloud admin)
• Loss of availability caused by security event (DDoS with confirmed intrusion indicators, destructive activity)
• Integrity compromise of critical data stores (tampering, unauthorized changes)
• Cloud/SaaS control-plane compromise
• Third party incident that disrupts a critical dependency (payments processor, core SaaS, managed service provider)

Output: A documented list of “organization-defined incidents” and where it is embedded (IR policy, incident severity matrix, SOC runbook index). ¹

Step 3: Define continuity actions for each category (your second required parameter)

For each COOP-triggering incident, document actions that preserve operations. These actions must be executable, assigned, and tied to systems.

Use a table like this:

COOP Incident Type	Continuity Objective	Continuity Actions (during incident)	Decision Authority	Preconditions/Dependencies
Ransomware suspected in prod	Maintain critical customer workflow	isolate affected segments; fail over to clean environment; disable write operations for non-critical modules; enable manual intake	Incident Commander + Service Owner	immutable backups; tested failover; break-glass access
Privileged account compromise	Maintain safe operations	rotate credentials; force re-auth; restrict admin APIs; pause risky deployments; move to “change freeze” mode	CISO/IR lead	PAM procedures; emergency comms

Output: “Organization-defined actions” that are clearly continuity-focused, not just “eradicate malware.” ¹

Step 4: Integrate into incident response workflows

Operationalize in the places responders actually work:

• Incident classification: Add a “COOP required?” flag based on category/severity.
• War room checklist: Include continuity actions as first-hour tasks, alongside containment.
• Change management: Define emergency change paths for continuity actions (failover, blocking integrations, feature flags).

Output: Updated IR procedures/runbooks reflecting COOP decision points and tasks. ²

Step 5: Validate by exercises and controlled tests

Run scenario-based exercises that force a COOP decision:

• Ransomware detected mid-day
• IdP compromise with widespread session hijacking
• Third party outage combined with suspicious access patterns

You want two outcomes: your teams can execute continuity actions, and you can produce evidence.

Output: Exercise plan, attendance, after-action report, tracked corrective actions.

Step 6: Evidence-ready mapping (make audits painless)

Map IR-4(3) to:

• control owner
• implementation procedure
• recurring evidence artifacts (what gets collected, by whom, where stored)

Daydream fits naturally here: use it to maintain the control mapping, assign ownership, and standardize the recurring evidence pack so you are not rebuilding it for every assessment.

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Assessors usually want proof of definition, implementation, and operation. Retain:

• IR-4(3) parameter definitions
  • list of COOP-triggering incidents
  • list of continuity actions per incident type ¹
• Runbooks/playbooks
  • incident response procedures that embed continuity decision points ²
• System/service mappings
  • critical services list and dependency map (including third parties)
• Exercise/test artifacts
  • tabletop or functional exercise scripts
  • after-action reports and remediation tracking
• Incident records
  • tickets or IR reports showing COOP classification and the continuity actions executed
• Approvals and authority
  • documented incident commander authority to enact continuity changes (failover, traffic blocking, feature restrictions)

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Expect these questions in interviews and evidence requests:

• “Which incidents did you define under IR-4(3), and where is that definition documented?” ¹
• “Show me a runbook where continuity actions are listed as part of incident response, not a separate DR plan.” ²
• “How do you decide to fail over, go read-only, or switch to manual processing? Who can approve?”
• “Provide an example incident where you maintained critical functions during response.”
• “How do third parties factor into continuity actions (alternative providers, bypass modes, throttling, isolation)?”

Common hangup: teams present a BC/DR policy and a generic IR plan, but neither contains incident-specific continuity actions tied to realistic scenarios.

Frequent implementation mistakes and how to avoid them

Mistake	Why it fails	Fix
“Our DR plan covers this”	DR often assumes restoration after outage, not operating during a security incident	Add COOP steps to IR playbooks and incident severity criteria 2
COOP incidents defined too broadly (“any high severity incident”)	Not testable; responders don’t know what triggers COOP actions	Define categories with concrete triggers and examples 1
Actions are vague (“ensure continuity”)	Assessor cannot verify; operators cannot execute	Write executable steps: failover procedure, read-only mode, isolation boundaries
No third-party dependency planning	Many critical services depend on external platforms	Add third-party outage/security scenarios and bypass/fallback actions
No evidence of operation	Control exists on paper only	Retain exercise artifacts and at least one incident record demonstrating COOP actions

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided in the source catalog for this requirement, so you should treat enforcement risk as indirect: failing IR-4(3) increases the chance that an incident becomes an extended outage or a safety/compliance breach, which can drive contractual noncompliance, audit findings, and reportable operational disruptions. ²

Practical execution plan (30/60/90)

Use this as an implementation cadence for governance and delivery sequencing. Treat the phases as checkpoints; adjust based on your environment complexity.

First 30 days (define and align)

• Name the IR-4(3) control owner and supporting owners (BC/DR, platform ops, key service owners). ²
• Draft the list of COOP-triggering incident categories and get sign-off from IR and business stakeholders. ¹
• Identify critical services and the minimum acceptable operating modes (normal, degraded, manual).
• Create an evidence register (what you will save after exercises/incidents).

By 60 days (write runbooks and wire into operations)

• Publish incident-type-specific continuity action playbooks with clear decision authorities. ¹
• Update SOC/IR triage to include “COOP required?” and link to the right playbook.
• Validate prerequisites: access paths, break-glass, backups, failover readiness, communication channels.
• Implement documentation discipline: where runbooks live, how changes are approved, how incident records capture COOP actions.

By 90 days (prove it works and make it assessable)

• Run at least one exercise that forces continuity actions during the incident and generates an after-action report.
• Close high-risk gaps identified in the exercise (missing failover steps, unclear authority, third-party blind spots).
• Package the assessor-ready evidence set: mappings, runbooks, exercise artifacts, and sample incident records.
• In Daydream, map IR-4(3) to the owner, procedure, and recurring artifacts so evidence collection is routine rather than a scramble.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to list every possible incident as a “COOP incident”?

No. IR-4(3) expects you to define organization-specific incident types that threaten mission/business functions and plan continuity actions for those. Keep the list tight and focused on realistic, high-impact scenarios. ¹

Can I satisfy IR-4(3) with a business continuity plan alone?

Usually no, because IR-4(3) requires actions taken in response to incidents as part of incident handling to continue functions. Your BC/DR plan can support, but you still need IR playbooks that include continuity actions. ¹

What’s the minimum evidence an assessor will accept?

You need documented COOP-triggering incidents, documented continuity actions per incident type, and proof those procedures are operational (exercise artifacts or incident records). Paper-only controls tend to fail interviews. ²

How should third parties be addressed under this requirement?

Treat critical third parties as dependencies in your continuity actions: define fallback modes, isolation steps, and communication/escalation paths when a third party incident disrupts your operations. Capture these in the same incident-type playbooks.

Who should have authority to trigger continuity actions like failover or read-only mode?

Define decision authority explicitly in your runbooks (incident commander plus the accountable service owner is common). Auditors will test whether your authority model matches how you actually operate during incidents.

We have never had a major incident. How do we prove operation?

Use scenario exercises and controlled tests to generate evidence that teams can execute continuity actions. Retain the exercise plan, outcomes, and remediation tracking as operational proof.

Footnotes

1. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON

2. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5