What does the term 'incident response' mean within RMF?

The term 'incident response' within the Risk Management Framework (RMF) refers to the process of handling and mitigating security breaches. This involves a series of structured processes that an organization follows to identify, respond to, manage, and recover from incidents that threaten the security of its information systems.

Incident response is critical to maintaining the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of information. It typically includes preparing for incidents, detecting and analyzing incidents, containing and eradicating threats, and recovering from the incident to restore normal operations. The goal is to minimize the impact of the incident, ensuring that the organization's security posture is restored and improved when possible.

In this context, the other options do not accurately reflect the definition of 'incident response'. For instance, conducting security audits is more about assessing current security measures rather than responding to incidents. Monitoring network traffic is a proactive measure to detect potential threats but does not encompass the entire incident handling process. Documenting system changes pertains to configuration management rather than managing a security incident. Hence, handling and mitigating security breaches is the correct interpretation of incident response within RMF.