Identity & Access
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Created by Claudiu Tabac - © 2026
This material is open for educational and research use. Commercial use without explicit permission from the author is not allowed.
Incident & Crisis Decisions
Every incident forces a choice between speed and security. This domain examines decisions made under pressure-when time compresses, information fragments, and consequences arrive immediately. These decisions rarely introduce new vulnerabilities directly. Instead, they activate, normalize, or permanently entrench weaknesses created in calmer moments.
Incidents don't just test your controls. They test your decision discipline when it matters most.
How These Decisions Are Actually Made
During incidents and crises, decision-making shifts rapidly. Speed replaces precision. Authority consolidates upward. Documentation lags behind action. Reversibility is assumed but rarely planned for in the chaos.
Teams operate under conditions that distort judgment: unclear blast radius, fragmented telemetry, parallel technical and business pressure, fear of service impact or reputational damage. The primary objective becomes restoration at any cost. Security consequences are deferred to tomorrow.
This compressed timeline creates a predictable pattern: decisions that should take hours happen in minutes, controls that took months to build get bypassed in seconds, and temporary becomes permanent without anyone noticing the transition.
Typical Crisis Conditions
  • Incomplete system visibility
  • Competing stakeholder demands
  • Public or regulatory scrutiny
  • Cascading technical failures
  • Uncertain recovery timeline
  • Limited subject matter expertise
Core Decision Patterns
Three repeating patterns define how crisis decisions create lasting security debt. Each pattern begins with legitimate urgency and ends with normalized risk.
Emergency Override Normalization
Crisis shortcuts become operational defaults through repeated use and forgotten context
Temporary Crisis Access Persistence
High-privilege access granted for incidents remains enabled indefinitely without removal triggers
Post-Incident Control Amnesia
Once resolved, temporary deviations and weaknesses are never revisited or remediated
Pattern One: Emergency Override Normalization
Crisis Introduction
Exceptional access or control bypasses are introduced to resolve an incident quickly
Repeated Usage
Emergency privileges granted broadly, access paths shared informally, controls relaxed "temporarily"
Permanent State
Emergency access remains enabled, usage is no longer exceptional, original justification forgotten

Critical insight: Crisis shortcuts become operational defaults. What was justified by necessity becomes protected by convenience and fear of removing access that "might be needed again."
Pattern Two: Temporary Crisis Access Persistence
Initial State
High-privilege access is granted to individuals or teams for crisis response. The urgency of the moment overrides normal approval processes. Access is documented minimally, if at all. No expiry date is set because "we'll remove it after the incident."
Typical Signals
  • No automatic expiration configured
  • Unclear ownership for revocation
  • Access justified by past incidents
  • Multiple people with same elevated privileges
Evolved State
Over time, crisis access blends into normal operations. Accountability dissolves as team membership changes. Privilege reviews validate the new state rather than questioning it. What was necessary becomes invisible risk.
Long-Term Impact
  • Expanded attack surface
  • Compliance audit findings
  • Identity sprawl without justification
  • Increased insider threat exposure
Pattern Three: Post-Incident Control Amnesia
1
During Crisis
Controls bypassed, temporary workarounds implemented, security boundaries relaxed under pressure
2
Incident Closure
Focus shifts to reporting and lessons learned. Remediation actions documented but lack ownership
3
Six Months Later
Temporary deviations forgotten. Same weaknesses resurface. Future incidents escalate faster
4
Pattern Repeats
Organizational memory resets. The incident ends but the exposure remains and grows
How this manifests in practice: generic lessons learned that never translate to specific controls, remediation backlogs that grow indefinitely, recurring vulnerabilities treated as new discoveries, and incident response procedures that rely on the same emergency access that caused previous problems.
What Changes After These Decisions
After repeated incident-driven decisions, organizations transform in predictable ways. Emergency paths multiply across systems. Control baselines drift without documentation. Trust boundaries widen to accommodate crisis patterns. Response muscle improves while security posture quietly degrades.
3x
Emergency Access Growth
Average increase in privileged accounts after major incidents over 12 months
67%
Bypasses Remaining Active
Percentage of temporary security exceptions still enabled 90 days post-incident
15min
Faster Recovery Time
Improvement in mean time to recovery as teams optimize for speed over security
Organizations become exceptionally skilled at recovering from incidents. They do not necessarily improve at reducing recurrence. The efficiency gain in incident response masks the expanding security debt accumulating beneath the surface.
How This Surfaces Later
During Security Audits
Unexplained privileged access discovered during reviews. Documentation gaps for crisis-justified permissions. Auditors find controls that don't match stated policies.
During Compliance Reviews
Identity sprawl justified by vague "past emergencies" without specific incident references. Control exceptions lacking expiration dates or approval chains.
During Future Incidents
Delayed detection due to bypassed monitoring controls. Post-incident investigations raise questions without clear answers about existing access patterns.
During Architecture Reviews
Emergency access paths become indistinguishable from intentional design choices. Legacy crisis decisions treated as requirements for new systems.
Why Reversal Is Hard & Executive Guidance
Why These Decisions Are Hard to Reverse
Reversal faces organizational and psychological barriers. Teams rely on emergency access "just in case" another crisis hits. Removing access feels risky without an incident forcing the issue. No single owner feels responsible after the crisis team disbands.
Most critically, urgency legitimized the original decision. That legitimacy creates protection: challenging crisis-driven access feels like questioning the judgment of responders who saved the day. What was justified by necessity becomes protected by fear and organizational inertia.
Executive Interpretation
For CISOs and CSOs:
  • Incidents reveal decision debt accumulated over years
  • Emergency actions must decay by default, not persist by default
  • Recovery success can hide long-term exposure growth
For Audit and Assurance:
  • Incident-driven access requires explicit lifecycle control
  • Crisis justification is not a permanent risk argument
  • Recurring emergency exceptions indicate governance weakness
Cross-References
Incident and crisis decisions don't exist in isolation. They activate and amplify weaknesses created in other decision domains, creating cascading effects across your security program.
Identity & Access Decisions
Crisis access patterns expose and worsen identity sprawl, privilege creep, and access review gaps
Risk & Exception Decisions
Emergency bypasses convert temporary risk acceptance into permanent control gaps
Audit & Assurance Decisions
Post-incident reviews reveal assurance gaps where crisis justifications replaced proper controls
Created by Claudiu Tabac - © 2026
This material is open for educational and research use. Commercial use without explicit permission from the author is not allowed.