IR-6(2): Vulnerabilities Related to Incidents

IR-6(2) requires you to report the specific system vulnerabilities that are associated with an incident to the organization-defined point of contact (ODP). Operationally, build an incident-to-vulnerability reporting workflow that identifies exploitable weaknesses during triage, validates them, and sends a tracked report with remediation ownership and timelines. ¹

Key takeaways:

• You must link incidents to the vulnerabilities that enabled or amplified them, then report those vulnerabilities to the defined recipient. ¹
• Treat this as an IR + VM handoff: incident response finds and confirms the weakness, vulnerability management owns remediation and tracking.
• Audit success depends on evidence: tickets, reports, timestamps, recipients, and closure proof tied back to the incident record.

The ir-6(2): vulnerabilities related to incidents requirement exists to prevent the “fix the symptom, miss the cause” failure mode. During incident response, teams often focus on containment and recovery, then lose the thread on the underlying weakness: the missing patch, exposed service, misconfiguration, weak credential control, or third-party access path that made the incident possible. IR-6(2) forces a specific discipline: when you report an incident, you also report the vulnerabilities associated with it to the organization-defined recipient, so remediation is owned, prioritized, and tracked to closure. ¹

For a CCO or GRC lead, the fastest path to operationalizing IR-6(2) is to define three things clearly: (1) what qualifies as a “vulnerability related to an incident,” (2) who receives the report (the ODP), and (3) what evidence proves the report happened and drove remediation. You do not need a novel program. You need a tight workflow that connects your incident ticketing and your vulnerability management process, with a repeatable reporting template and a measurable closure loop.

Regulatory text

Requirement (verbatim): “Report system vulnerabilities associated with reported incidents to {{ insert: param, ir-06.02_odp }}.” ¹

Operator interpretation of the text:

• “Report” means you produce a communication or record that is sent to, or formally logged for, the defined recipient; it should be traceable and time-bound.
• “System vulnerabilities associated with reported incidents” means the weaknesses that enabled initial access, privilege escalation, lateral movement, persistence, data access, or service disruption for that incident (even if discovered after containment).
• “Organization-defined point of contact” means you must name the recipient in your governance documentation (role or team), and you must route reports there consistently. ¹

Plain-English requirement interpretation

You must connect incident handling to root-cause weakness reporting. For every incident that triggers your incident reporting process, you identify and document the related vulnerabilities, then notify the designated stakeholder so the weaknesses get prioritized and fixed. ¹

A practical way to scope “vulnerabilities related to incidents”:

• Direct exploit: CVE exploited, vulnerable library, unpatched service.
• Misconfiguration: open storage bucket, overly permissive security group, exposed admin port.
• Control weakness: missing MFA on remote access, weak service account management, inadequate network segmentation.
• Third-party pathway: compromised third party credentials, insecure integration token handling, mis-scoped API keys.

Who it applies to (entity and operational context)

This control is commonly assessed in:

• Federal information systems and programs using NIST SP 800-53 as the control baseline.
• Contractor systems handling federal data, including environments where incident reporting is contractually required and assessed against NIST SP 800-53. ¹

Operationally, IR-6(2) applies anywhere you have:

• An incident response process with a defined “reported incident” threshold.
• A vulnerability management and remediation process (patching, configuration management, code fixes).
• Cross-functional ownership boundaries (SOC, IR team, platform engineering, app teams, IT operations, third parties).

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

1) Define the ODP and make it unambiguous

Decide who receives “vulnerabilities related to incidents” reports. Common choices:

• Vulnerability Management lead or team mailbox
• CISO delegate for remediation governance
• System owner group for the affected environment
• Enterprise Risk/GRC intake (if they drive remediation accountability)

Document the role/team and the channel (ticket queue, email alias, IR platform workflow). Keep it stable; changes should be controlled.

2) Define the trigger: what counts as a “reported incident”

Write a rule that maps your incident severity taxonomy to “reported incident.” Examples:

• “All incidents Severity 1–2” (if you use severity)
• “Any incident with confirmed unauthorized access, malware execution, or data exfiltration indicators”
• “Any incident that meets external notification thresholds” (if that is how you classify)

The key is consistency. Auditors will sample incidents and expect to see vulnerability reporting each time the trigger applies.

3) Add a “vulnerability linkage” task to your incident workflow

In your incident ticket/template, add mandatory fields:

• Suspected vulnerability type (CVE, misconfiguration, credential weakness, third-party access, unknown)
• Evidence (scanner output, config snapshot, log excerpt reference, forensic note ID)
• Confidence level (suspected/confirmed)
• System(s) affected (asset IDs, cloud account/project, application name)
• Owner for remediation (team or system owner)
• Remediation plan (patch/config change/rotation/compensating control)
• Target remediation date (your policy-driven date, or “TBD pending change window”)

Make “confirmed vs suspected” explicit. Early in IR you may only have hypotheses; IR-6(2) still benefits from timely reporting with later updates.

4) Validate the vulnerability before reporting (lightweight, fast)

You do not need perfect certainty, but you do need disciplined validation:

• If it’s a CVE: confirm affected version and exposure path in your environment.
• If it’s a misconfiguration: capture the current state and the intended baseline.
• If it’s credentials/access: confirm the auth path (VPN, IdP, API token, service account).

Record who validated and what evidence they relied on. This becomes your defensible trail.

5) Produce the report to the ODP (and prove it was sent)

Standardize a short report format (email, ticket, IR platform notification) that includes:

• Incident ID, date/time, impacted system
• Vulnerability description and classification
• Exploit/abuse narrative (how it contributed)
• Scope (where else the same weakness exists)
• Immediate containment actions taken
• Required remediation actions, owner, and tracking ID(s)

If your organization works heavily with third parties, include whether the weakness is in:

• Your system
• A third party’s system
• The integration boundary (keys, network paths, shared admin roles)

6) Open remediation work items and track them to closure

IR-6(2) is easy to “report-and-forget.” Avoid that by requiring:

• A linked vulnerability ticket (or change request) for each reported weakness
• Defined ownership and prioritization
• Closure criteria (patch applied, config baseline enforced, key rotated, control implemented)
• Verification evidence (new scan results, config drift report, unit test, access policy diff)

7) Close the loop with lessons learned and trend reporting

After the incident, feed the vulnerability theme into:

• Secure configuration baselines
• Patch SLAs/prioritization rules
• Third-party access reviews
• Engineering backlog for systemic fixes

For governance, produce a lightweight recurring summary: “incidents by vulnerability category,” focused on action, not metrics theater.

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Keep artifacts that prove reporting happened and remediation was managed:

Core evidence ¹:

• Incident record showing it met the “reported incident” trigger
• Vulnerability identification notes (CVE details, misconfig evidence, root-cause analysis excerpt)
• The actual report to the ODP (email, ticket, workflow record) with timestamp and recipient
• Linked remediation tickets/change records with owner assignment
• Validation/verification evidence after remediation (scan output, config diff, patch proof)
• Exception/risk acceptance documentation if remediation is deferred, with compensating controls

Program-level evidence:

• IR procedure section that defines vulnerability-related reporting and the ODP
• RACI matrix for IR vs VM vs system owners
• Templates (report template, incident ticket fields)
• Training or internal guidance for responders on how to identify and document vulnerabilities

Daydream can help here by mapping IR-6(2) to a clear control owner, a written procedure, and a recurring evidence set so you can answer audit requests without assembling proof from scratch.

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Expect assessors to ask:

• “Show me three recent incidents that were reported. Where are the vulnerability reports for each?”
• “Who is the ODP, and where is that defined?”
• “How do you decide a vulnerability is ‘associated’ with the incident?”
• “If the vulnerability was in a third party product or integration, did you still report it internally?”
• “How do you ensure remediation actually happened after reporting?”
• “What happens when the vulnerability is unknown at initial report time?”

Hangups happen when incident artifacts live in one tool and vulnerability remediation lives in another with no linking IDs. Fix this with mandatory cross-references.

Frequent implementation mistakes and how to avoid them

Mistake: Treating IR-6(2) as a generic “incident report” add-on.
Avoid it: Require a vulnerability-specific section with evidence and remediation tickets.

Mistake: Reporting only CVEs and ignoring misconfigurations and access control weaknesses.
Avoid it: Define vulnerability categories broadly; train responders to capture config and identity failures.

Mistake: Sending informal notifications that cannot be reproduced in an audit.
Avoid it: Use a ticketing queue or archived email alias; require timestamps and incident IDs.

Mistake: “We’ll fix it later” with no tracking.
Avoid it: Make remediation ticket creation a gate for incident closure or post-incident review.

Mistake: Third party dependency gaps.
Avoid it: Add a step to notify internal ODP even when remediation is owned by a third party; track the third party’s fix as a dependency with due dates and escalation.

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided in the source material for this requirement. Practically, the risk is assessment failure due to missing evidence: teams often do the investigative work but cannot prove that vulnerability reporting occurred, or they cannot show remediation linkage. ¹

From an operational risk angle, skipping IR-6(2) increases repeat-incident likelihood because the same weakness persists across systems. It also weakens your defensibility after an incident because you cannot demonstrate governance over corrective actions.

A practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

First 30 days (stand up the minimum viable workflow)

• Name the ODP (role + inbox/queue) and document it in your IR procedure.
• Update incident templates to include vulnerability linkage fields and a required “report sent” checkbox with evidence.
• Create a one-page reporting template with required elements and examples.
• Pilot on the next incident and one tabletop scenario; adjust based on friction.

Days 31–60 (make it reliable and auditable)

• Integrate incident and remediation tracking: require a remediation ticket ID in the incident record.
• Define “suspected vs confirmed” update rules so reports can be amended without confusion.
• Build a simple evidence pack checklist for audits (what to export from IR platform, ticketing system, scanner, cloud config).
• Train SOC/IR leads and VM coordinators on the handoff expectations.

Days 61–90 (scale and harden)

• Add QA: a weekly or monthly review of closed incidents to confirm vulnerability reporting and remediation linkage.
• Standardize third party pathways: require documentation of third party notification and internal tracking when third party fixes are needed.
• Produce a lightweight trend review for leadership: recurring vulnerability themes tied to remediation backlog, not vanity metrics.
• If you manage controls in Daydream, map IR-6(2) to the owner, procedure, and recurring evidence artifacts so audits become retrieval work, not archaeology.

Frequently Asked Questions

What counts as a “vulnerability related to an incident” under IR-6(2)?

Treat it as any weakness that enabled or worsened the incident: exploitable software flaws, misconfigurations, or control gaps like missing MFA. Document why you believe it is associated and what evidence supports that link. ¹

Do we have to wait until root cause is fully confirmed before reporting?

No. Report suspected vulnerabilities promptly with a clear confidence label, then update the report when confirmation is available. Your procedure should define how updates are issued to the ODP.

Who should the organization-defined point of contact (ODP) be?

The ODP should be the role/team that can drive remediation accountability across system owners, typically vulnerability management, security engineering, or a designated remediation governance function. Document the choice and keep it consistent. ¹

How do we handle incidents where the vulnerability is a third party issue?

Report it internally to the ODP anyway, then track the third party fix as a remediation dependency with an internal ticket. Keep evidence of third party notification and your follow-up actions.

What evidence do auditors usually want for IR-6(2)?

They want a traceable chain: incident record → identified vulnerability → report sent to ODP → remediation ticket(s) → verification and closure. If any link is missing, expect a finding.

Can a single report cover multiple vulnerabilities found during one incident?

Yes, if the report clearly enumerates each vulnerability, the affected assets, and separate remediation actions/owners. Avoid bundling unrelated weaknesses without distinct tracking IDs.

Footnotes

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