Effective reporting capabilities are critical in developing a good cybersecurity posture. Reporting allows security personnel to evaluate the state of their current operations, understand the events leading to an attack, and how to remediate similar attacks in the future. Proper reporting and root cause analysis also improve future incident response by identifying gaps, allowing the security team to be better equipped the next time an event occurs.
But, without the right procedures and technology in place, security teams are left in the dark. As you build your reporting capabilities, here are a few best practices we’ve developed to help you streamline the process.
The basis of any good reporting program is setting expectations and a collective understanding among stakeholders. Build a cadence for routine assessments of your operations. For security events, determine what incidents constitute a report: i.e., unauthorized access, malware infections, insider activity, data exfiltration, etc.
Based on that list, create time frames for each specific incident type, including reporting cadence, how long after the event the report Is required, and other timing-dependent tasks. This dovetails well into the last part of your baselines: responsibilities and stakeholders. Understand who is responsible for creating and curating reports, who presents them, and who needs to know. That way, you keep a consistent approach to cybersecurity reporting, even if the team changes or scales.
In reporting, it’s important that anyone on the IT or security team(s) can effectively access your reports. An easy-to-use, well-organized system helps anyone to pull reports and highlight the efficacy of your program. The ability to create and save dashboards for this information streamlines the process even further.
One such option is SIEM, or Security Information and Event Management. SIEM solutions aggregate logs and security event data into one location, grouping detections and alerts in an easy-to-follow manner. With prebuilt dashboards and widgets, SIEM allows for efficient and effective reporting. The best SIEM options even allow for Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), so you can limit access to sensitive information to just those who need it.
This level of usability proves especially useful for compliance audits. Quickly pulling key metrics and event history allows you to show auditors that you comply with regulatory requirements. It also streamlines quarterly reviews and stakeholder updates.
Security awareness training is a major part of any mature security program, but it goes even further when it comes to reporting. Training helps your team to be able to consistently and routinely analyze data within dashboards and reports. This consistency aligns with the policies and procedures established earlier and ensures that accurate, relevant information is used for all reports, regardless of who creates it.
Develop a standard training program that keeps everyone on the same page regarding reporting. This makes it so that everyone, even new hires, can build relevant, data-driven reports. Adding recurrence to this training also has immense benefits. Having team members review reporting training on a yearly cycle, as well as routine reviews of your training program, keeps the whole team pulling in the same direction for reporting.
Reporting on incidents can be nerve-wracking, especially when the fault/root cause of the incident is unclear. Despite this, reporting needs to always be a priority in your security program. Regardless of fault, reports should demonstrate how an organization acted during a security event, and what steps were (and weren’t) taken to reach the outcome.
Because of this, incident reporting is critical for compliance and insurance. Proper reporting ultimately helps security teams learn from mistakes, identify misconfigurations, and grow for the future. That’s why it’s so important to make transparent reporting a driving force in your security culture.
Piggybacking off the point above, reporting in cybersecurity can expose information that puts individuals or even the entire organization at severe liability. For this reason, many withhold disclosing cybersecurity reports for fear of the potential ramifications and backlash that can come from them.
If you can guarantee anonymity and confidentiality in reporting, then members of the IT and security teams will be more apt to report after incidents. This helps maintain a culture of transparency and reporting. It also ensures that the organization meets disclosure requirements of industry and government regulations.
Inevitably, reports will surface vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other weaknesses within your security program. It’s of the utmost importance that you develop an approach to intake and address those concerns quickly and systematically.
Determining your triage approach should follow a similar standard to several of the steps above, with established responsibilities and training to ensure consistency. Timelines in triaging are also critical; if a high-severity problem is uncovered during reporting, it should be prioritized and addressed sooner than smaller issues.
Communication is one of the most important aspects of cybersecurity reporting as it keeps everyone on the same page and allows for real-time updates when reports are pulled, or things are changed. Clear communication helps ensure team members meet prescribed reporting timelines and enables efficient collaboration during incident response.
Be sure to establish dedicated lines of communication specifically for cyber reporting such as chat channels or other tools. This communication is especially crucial when working with external parties, such as clients or incident response firms, to keep all groups in the right direction.
As mentioned above, working with groups outside the direct organization often occurs during reporting. These parties could range from direct clients to compliance auditors, insurance adjusters, board stakeholders, and more. All these groups have a stake in your reports and must be properly informed during the reporting process.
Many of the best practices laid out play into proper collaboration with external parties, including clear reporting policies, clear communication, and a culture of transparent reporting. It’s important to consider outlining external communication practices in your procedures to ensure proper approval processes. With all these in place, the organization can work effectively through disclosure and business reviews with outside agencies and customers.
As your organization evolves and changes, your reporting processes must adapt with it. By routinely reviewing your reporting program, you can identify practices that either don’t work or are outdated given changes in the organization. This could range from determining responsibilities for new roles, phasing out defunct ones, or even fully refacing the program as necessary.
Not only does adapting your reporting program align processes with organizational changes but allows you to stay in step with the evolving threat landscape. New threats dictate distinct levels of intricacy in reporting which may not have been accounted for in your initial development. Routine reviews ensure that the program remains performant.
A major portion of evolving the reporting process is being able to learn from past experiences. Documenting and analyzing existing reports gives organizations a baseline from which to pull insights and understanding.
Bake documentation and analysis into your reporting processes from square one to codify your team’s ability to learn from previous incidents and reviews. That way, you can ensure consistency from the beginning of your program, constantly improve, and find the best ways to report on your cybersecurity findings.
Consider employing a SIEM solution as you look to incorporate these best practices into your reporting program. With SIEM, you get a single location for all your logs and security event alerts, making it easier to pull reports at scale.
Learn more about the benefits of SIEM and how it can help you streamline your reporting. Contact us today to see it in action.
