An evidence-backed incident account
- Timeline with event sources, timestamps and confidence
- Affected identities, capabilities, data and systems
- Confirmed actions distinguished from attempts and unknowns
- Evidence register and collection limitations
A record of operational decisions
Document approved containment, change owners, validation results and remaining exposure. Record the conditions under which each service was restored and who accepted residual risk.
A practical improvement plan
Prioritise work on tool permissions, approvals, source trust, secrets, telemetry and incident runbooks. Name owners and verification evidence. The agreed scope determines which outputs are produced; legal opinions and provider-internal forensics are not assumed.
What a usable finding contains
| Field | Required meaning |
|---|---|
| Observation | A precise event, not a general claim that the AI was compromised |
| Evidence | Source identifiers, timestamps and collection references |
| Interpretation | What the evidence supports, alternative explanations and confidence |
| Impact | Affected identities, systems or data, with known limits |
| Action | Containment or remediation, owner and approval |
| Validation | The check performed, its result and remaining risk |
Illustrative reporting example — not a client case
Observation: a tool execution record reports a customer-record update. A matching destination audit event confirms the update under a delegated service identity. The initiating run and version are known; the original retrieved document was not retained. Conclusion: the unauthorised change is confirmed, but the source of the instruction remains unresolved. Recovery acceptance requires a tested permission boundary and an owner-approved correction of the record.
Two views, one evidence base
Agree a technical report and an executive summary when both are needed. The summary should state impact, decisions and unresolved risks without turning an inference into a fact. The technical appendix should allow the authorised engineering team to locate the supporting records and repeat the agreed validation. Evidence storage, privileged communications and external distribution require their own instructions.
