CPCSC Level 2 Control

Last updated June 25, 2026

03.06.02Incident response

CPCSC Level 2 03.06.02: Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance

Apply incident monitoring, reporting, and response assistance to prepare the organization to identify, report, contain, and learn from security incidents for CPCSC Level 2 readiness. This guide separates the official ITSP.10.171 control language from practical implementation, evidence, auditor questions, and related controls.

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Formal Control Language

Official ITSP.10.171 wording for 03.06.02. Use the Cyber Centre publication and contract requirements as the source of truth for certification, assessment, or procurement submissions.

  • Track and document system security incidents
  • Report suspected incidents to the organizational incident response capability within [Assignment: organization-defined time period]
  • Report incident information to [Assignment: organization-defined authorities]
  • Provide an incident response support resource that offers advice and assistance to system users for the handling and reporting of incidents

Contains information sourced from Government of Canada material used under the Open Government Licence - Canada.

What This Means In Plain English

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance is part of the CPCSC Level 2 Incident response family. This is about showing the organization can recognize, escalate, report, contain, and learn from incidents involving specified information.

For a founder, CISO, engineer, or compliance owner, the practical question is whether incident monitoring, reporting, and response assistance is visible in real operating evidence: a setting, workflow, ticket, log, approval, review, or exception record that can survive an external assessment.

Level 2 is different from Level 1 because the evidence has to survive an external assessment. A policy statement helps, but the stronger answer is a record that shows who did the work, when it ran, what system setting or workflow enforced it, and how exceptions were handled.

How To Implement It

1

Define the in-scope systems, owners, users, vendors, and data flows affected by incident monitoring, reporting, and response assistance.

2

Maintain an incident plan, train response roles, test the process, define reporting paths, and keep incident records from triage through lessons learned.

3

Translate the formal requirement into one or two operating procedures: who performs it, how often, where it is recorded, and who approves exceptions.

4

Configure the relevant systems so the control is enforced by identity, endpoint, cloud, network, ticketing, monitoring, vendor, or documentation workflows rather than memory.

5

Keep evidence in a consistent folder, GRC system, ticket queue, or audit workspace so an assessor can trace the control from requirement to implementation to review.

Evidence Normally Gathered

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance: incident response plan.

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance: tabletop exercise records.

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance: training completion reports.

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance: incident tickets.

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance: communication templates.

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance: lessons learned notes.

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance: owner assignment and review cadence.

Incident Monitoring, Reporting, and Response Assistance: exception, remediation, or POA&M records when the control is not fully implemented.

Common Auditor Questions

Where is incident monitoring, reporting, and response assistance implemented in the in-scope environment?

Who owns incident monitoring, reporting, and response assistance, and how do they know it is operating?

Show the evidence that proves incident monitoring, reporting, and response assistance ran during the assessment period.

What happens when incident monitoring, reporting, and response assistance fails, is bypassed, or has an exception?

How does this control connect to the system security plan, risk register, POA&M, and related CPCSC controls?

Sources

Source and attribution.

Formal control language is sourced from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security ITSP.10.171 publication. CPCSC Level 2 assessment context references the Government of Canada CPCSC program overview and ITSP.10.171-01 assessment guidance.

CPCSC Program OverviewITSP.10.171ITSP.10.171-01Open Government Licence - Canada