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Workaround

What is Workaround?

A temporary alternative process or procedure used to maintain operations when normal systems or processes are unavailable.

Business Continuity

What the standards actually require on workaround

Requirements naming workaround across 6 standards, quoted from the control text.

FIRST CSIRT Services Framework v2.1 Service Area 3 - Vulnerability Management. SCOPE: discovery + tracking + remediation + disclosure of vulnerabilities affecting the constituency.

FIRST-CSIRTF-SA3-VulnMgmt · Service Area 3 - Vulnerability Management and Coordinated Disclosure

The organisation selects a remediation strategy from full fix, configuration mitigation, workaround, or deprecation based on severity, complexity, and customer needs.

30111-6.5 · Remediation Strategy Selection

Including remediation guidance including patches, workarounds, and mitigation steps

29147-7.8 · Remediation information
ITIL 41 control

Reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of incidents and managing workarounds and known errors.

SM-PRB-1 · Problem Management

Execute Containment + Eradication + Recovery per NIST SP 800-61 Rev 2 Section 3.3. Containment Strategy (Section 3.3.1) must be chosen based on (a) potential damage to and theft of resources, (b) need for evidence preservation, (c) service availability require...

NISTSP61-5 · Containment, Eradication, and Recovery

Implement long term containment for systems that cannot be immediately rebuilt, including hardening, monitoring uplift, and temporary workarounds maintained until eradication.

PICERL-C-03 · Containment: Long Term Containment

Questions people ask about workaround

What is Workaround?
A temporary alternative process or procedure used to maintain operations when normal systems or processes are unavailable.
Why is Workaround important for compliance?
Workaround is a key concept in Business Continuity. Understanding workaround helps organizations meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk, and demonstrate due diligence during audits. Our compliance platform maps 686 frameworks with 311K cross-framework control mappings.
Which compliance frameworks address Workaround?
Workaround appears in the requirement text of FIRST CSIRT Services Framework and Standards, ISO/IEC 30111:2019, ISO/IEC 29147:2018, ITIL 4, NIST SP 800-61. Across these standards we have identified 8 controls that name it directly, each linked to the control text on the compliance platform.
Where can I learn more about Workaround?
Explore our compliance framework pages to see how workaround applies across different standards and regulations. Our implementation guides provide step-by-step guidance, and the compliance platform offers AI-powered analysis of how this concept maps across 686 frameworks.

See how Workaround applies across compliance frameworks

Our platform maps 686 frameworks with 311K cross-framework control mappings. Explore how this concept is addressed across standards.

Written and maintained by Gerard Blokdyk, The Art of Service.