The best way to deal with a security incident involves preparing before the fact. While you can have the best-laid defenses, patch everything regularly, and have great technology backing you, security incidents can still happen. Ultimately, the security incident doesn’t need to be catastrophic—but how you respond matters.
Preparing for security incidents is an absolute must and documentation plays a central role in your preparation. Today, we’ll talk about the importance of documentation in security and why automating as much of it as possible makes a huge difference.
Why documentation matters in security
Most people panic during a security incident without proper training and preparation—even security and technical professionals. Yet successfully handling security incidents requires steady hands and calm minds from everyone involved. Without them, it’s hard to make sound decisions, solve issues fast, or communicate clearly with customers and other interested parties (including law enforcement if necessary).
Reducing these nerves should be an essential part of any IT services providers’ security strategy. You can help reduce nerves by practicing drills for common incidents like ransomware attacks or major account takeovers. However, taking time out of your team’s busy schedule to run a drill for a cyberattack often eats into your budget. And if you work for or own an MSP rather than an MSSP, you may not want to take the time away from day-to-day operations to practice these scenarios.
If that’s the case, documentation is essential. Even when people do practice drills, documentation still plays a critical role in a successful outcome. You don’t want people hunting for information or taking the wrong steps when a disaster strikes. Just like you run backup before you need it, you should have documentation in place before a security incident occurs.
Documentation: Five tips for better security
When it comes to documentation and security, there are a few things to consider.
The essential role of documentation
Preparing for potential security incidents is an absolute must. Your goal should be to reduce potential confusion and simplify as much of the process as possible to prevent mistakes and keep the team calm and cool under pressure. Documentation—from standard operating procedures (SOPs) to service histories—play an essential role in reducing the potential chaos of a cyberattack. So make sure to get your documentation in order before you need it.
More: Speaking of documentation, SolarWinds Passportal + Documentation Manager is built to help make documentation easy, consistent, and secure. With it, you can make sure technicians have the information they need by linking together assets, documents, knowledgebase articles, and passwords in one spot. Additionally, it offers team-wide password management features to help you enforce password best practices across your team. Learn more by visiting passportalmsp.com/msp-documentation today.
Guest blog courtesy of SolarWinds MSP. Read more SolarWinds MSP blogs here.
