Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) 9 - Response, correctly states that emergency response and security response to an incident should not be confused. The two are separate, but complementary. While the emergency response, or crisis management plan, deals with the broader implications of the incident, the security plan deals with the specific security issues raised by the incident at a tactical level. How do these plans fit together? How should organizations organize themselves to ensure that security operations and the broader response are coordinated? What other plans might be needed to effectively respond to the impacts of a security incident?
Let’s start with some basic concepts and outline the various overseas chinese database elements that we believe are critical to a successful security incident response. It should be noted here that there is a whole world of terminology surrounding crisis management and emergency response, with many terms used interchangeably. For the purposes of clarity and for the purposes of this article, we will briefly outline how we use the various key terms and what we believe are the core elements of a successful security response.
Crisis Management: Incident management in its broadest sense, at a strategic level, usually at the corporate level, focused primarily on the financial and reputational impacts of the incident, as well as ensuring that those dealing with the tactical and operational impacts have the resources they need to carry out their role. This is underpinned by a crisis management plan.
Emergency Management: the management of an incident at a tactical level, usually at the site level. Responders here are responsible for coordinating activities to ensure that the incident is dealt with and to ensure wider site coordination. This is underpinned by an emergency response plan, site response plan, or similar.
Incident Management: the physical response to the incident, a hands-on role involving physical activities. There may be several incident management teams. For example, one incident management team may work on the security response, while another team deals with the impacts of the security incident on site operations, such as containing any damage and mitigating the wider impacts. This team works at the operational level. Incident management teams are likely to work directly with other responders, such as fire support, medical support, hazardous spill response support, environmental remediation teams, and local law enforcement. Teams may use specific emergency response operating procedures or emergency operation plans here.
Business Continuity Team: While the crisis, emergency and incident management teams work to respond to the incident, the business continuity team will consider the impact of the incident on the site’s operations and will establish a plan to recover those activities within pre-agreed resources. For example, the security incident may have deprived the site of essential supplies or may have forced the site to shut down all or part of its operations. The business continuity team is responsible for ensuring that a plan is in place so that the site or the wider company can continue to meet its obligations to its customers, regardless of the incident.