The Detection, Response & Recovery domain under the DORA Lens evaluates whether your organization can identify ICT-related disruptions, respond effectively, and restore critical services within acceptable timeframes. This domain determines whether resilience is operationally real under stress, not merely documented on paper.
Purpose of This Domain
The purpose of Detection, Response & Recovery is to ensure that your organization maintains operational resilience when it matters most. DORA evaluates performance during actual disruption, not steady-state controls or theoretical scenarios.
This domain validates that your resilience capabilities function effectively under real-world pressure, ensuring business continuity and regulatory compliance when systems face unexpected challenges.
Core Objectives
Disruptions and incidents are detected promptly through robust monitoring
Response actions are coordinated effectively across teams
Recovery restores critical services within defined objectives
Real-time detection of ICT incidents and service degradation across your infrastructure, enabling rapid response initiation.
System Monitoring
Continuous monitoring of systems supporting critical services to maintain visibility into operational health and performance.
Signal Correlation
Intelligent correlation of technical and operational signals to identify patterns and potential disruptions before they escalate.
Escalation Triggers
Clear escalation triggers and thresholds that ensure appropriate response activation when critical conditions are met.
This capability area examines whether your organization has reliable visibility into ICT disruptions and incidents. Without effective detection mechanisms, response and recovery cannot begin in time to prevent significant business impact.
Clearly defined response roles and responsibilities ensure accountability during incidents, preventing confusion and delays.
Coordinated Action
Seamless coordination across IT, security, business units, and management to execute unified response strategies.
Time-Pressure Decisions
Effective decision-making processes that function reliably under time pressure and uncertainty during active incidents.
Incident Communications
Structured communication management during incidents to keep stakeholders informed and aligned throughout the response.
This capability area focuses on whether your organization can respond decisively and coherently when disruption occurs. Effective response limits both immediate impact and long-term recovery complexity, protecting your business operations and reputation.
This capability area evaluates whether critical services can be restored within acceptable timeframes following a disruption. Recovery capability directly determines operational survivability and business continuity under adverse conditions.
Your organization must demonstrate not only documented recovery procedures, but proven ability to execute restoration under pressure while maintaining data integrity and service quality standards.
Recovery Components
Defined recovery objectives including RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) aligned with business needs
Availability of tested recovery procedures and pre-positioned resources ready for immediate deployment
Systematic restoration of data, systems, and service dependencies in proper sequence
Comprehensive validation of restored service integrity before returning to normal operations
4hrs
Target RTO
Average recovery time objective for critical services
Escalation to crisis or management structures when incidents exceed operational response thresholds
02
Executive Oversight
Management oversight of critical decisions impacting essential services and business operations
03
Business Alignment
Alignment between technical response actions and strategic business priorities during disruption
04
Stakeholder Coordination
Coordination with external stakeholders including regulators, partners, and customers where required
This capability area examines whether major ICT disruptions are managed at the appropriate organizational level. DORA explicitly expects management involvement in significant ICT incidents that could impact critical services, financial stability, or regulatory standing. Effective crisis management ensures that strategic decisions consider both immediate operational needs and long-term business resilience.
This capability area focuses on whether incidents are systematically used to strengthen organizational resilience. Incidents serve as valuable resilience feedback mechanisms, revealing weaknesses in controls, procedures, or coordination that may not surface during testing. Organizations that excel in this area treat every incident as a learning opportunity, continuously refining their detection, response, and recovery capabilities based on real-world experience.
Under DORA, Detection, Response & Recovery must demonstrate timely detection of disruptions, coordinated response across organizational functions, and proven recovery capability validated through testing and operational experience.
Regulatory expectations focus on operational effectiveness, not just documented procedures. Supervisors evaluate actual performance during incidents and exercises.
Related Frameworks
This domain aligns closely with complementary regulatory and assurance frameworks:
NIS2: Incident handling, reporting obligations, and response coordination requirements
ISO/IEC 27001: Incident management and business continuity control objectives
SOC 2: Availability criteria and incident response process expectations
Evidence supporting this domain must demonstrate actual operational performance, not theoretical capabilities. Representative evidence includes incident timelines and response logs, recovery execution records, management escalation and decision documentation, and comprehensive post-incident review reports.
Supervisors assess what happened, when decisions were made, and why specific actions were taken during real disruptions.
Common Failures
Organizations frequently encounter failure patterns that expose fragile resilience under real conditions. These include delayed detection of service disruption due to inadequate monitoring, unclear response ownership causing coordination breakdowns, recovery plans that prove unexecutable under pressure, and lack of systematic learning after incidents.
These failures reveal gaps between documented procedures and operational reality.
Evaluate your organization's real-world resilience capabilities under DORA requirements, focusing on operational performance rather than documentation alone.
Validate Readiness
Confirm that detection, response, and recovery capabilities are genuinely ready to perform under stress through testing and evidence review.
Prepare for Supervision
Gather and organize evidence demonstrating operational effectiveness for supervisory review and regulatory assessment purposes.
Align Capabilities
Ensure technical response capabilities are properly integrated with business continuity strategies and organizational priorities.
Core Question: Detection, Response & Recovery answers a fundamental DORA question: "Can your organization detect disruption, respond decisively, and recover critical services under pressure?" This assessment helps you answer with confidence.