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Security Operations · Foundational

Incident Severity

A classification of an incident's urgency and impact used to prioritize response and escalation.

Definition

Severity schemes (for example SEV1 to SEV4 or critical to low) consider functional impact, information impact, recoverability, number of affected users and regulatory implications. Severity drives response time targets and notification requirements.

Example

A confirmed breach of regulated health data rated critical, triggering executive notification.

Exam tip

Prioritize by business impact and data sensitivity, not by the number of alerts.

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