A company has hired a security administrator to maintain and administer Linux and Windows- based systems. Written in the nightly report file is the following: - Firewall log files are at the…

Immediately escalating to the incident response team without further investigation is premature and bypasses the administrator's responsibility to collect additional context before escalating.

Calling a manager as an ad hoc action skips the structured escalation and documentation steps defined in the site's incident response policy, which should govern all such decisions.

Running an antivirus scan addresses only one narrow cause and does not investigate the primary concern of deliberate log file tampering, which requires a broader forensic approach.

Log files grow monotonically under normal operation, so a decrease in size is a clear anomaly that suggests an attacker may be clearing or modifying logs to conceal malicious activity. The correct response is to document the observation as suspicious, continue gathering information to understand the scope and timeline of the anomaly, and then follow the organization's established incident response policy for consistent, legally defensible handling. Acting according to site policy ensures the right escalation paths and preservation steps are followed.