IT Security Incident Report - importance and best practices

When a cybersecurity incident occurs, there are numerous follow-up actions that are crucial to the health and safety of your company. Whether you are engaging in RCA (root cause analysis), rebuilding trust with your users, or upgrading your security strategy, it is important to take definitive action in the wake of a security breach. 

One of the most important elements of IT security response? The cybersecurity incident report. While any security incident is stressful, for IT teams, writing the IT incident report can add to that stress tenfold. Today, we’re going to dive into the ins and outs of these reports, what they need to cover, why they are important, and how to write them effectively. 

What is a cyber security incident report? 

Security incident reports help key decision makers in your organization better understand the who, what, how, where, and why of a cybersecurity breach. These essential documents are typically shared with executives, stakeholders, and upper management to detail what happened during a security event – and, of course, ensure the organization is better prepared in the future so that event does not happen again.

Looking to the future is an important part of any computer security incident report, as is understanding the root causes behind the security breach. When you take a look into the ultimate causes that allowed for a security breach, you can then better delineate solutions to keep a similar event from occurring in the days ahead. 

Key components of an IT security incident report

One of the most important goals of cyber security incident reporting is to provide a clear picture of what allowed a security breach to occur. Then, you will want to show that you have a plan in place to keep it from happening again. Here are some key questions that you will want to address in your IT incident report… 

• What happened? In as much detail as possible, provide an overview of what occurred during the cyber attack. For instance, was it a ransomware attack? Was it phishing? 
• When did it happen? Make sure to share when the breach was detected and when it was resolved. 
• Who was involved? List the team members in your IT department who played a role in identifying and mitigating the security breach. 
• What was the response? How did the team respond to the attack and how was the problem triaged to prevent further damage? Then, how were long-term solutions discovered and implemented?
• Was the response effective? Did the initial strategy work, or did the team have to explore other avenues? What alternate steps needed to enter the equation in order to render the threat null? 
• What assets were impacted? List out the affected devices, which might include end-user devices, servers, storage, networks, or other technology assets. You will also want to include what happened to these devices. 
• How was the organization affected? How did the security breach interfere with the company’s ability to perform its regular operations? For instance, there might have been a delay in responding to customer inquiries or a system lockdown that slowed down manufacturing efforts. 
• Why did the attack happen? As you perform root cause analysis after a security breach, you will take a closer look into the factors that ultimately caused the attack. 
• What can be done to prevent future occurrences? How could this event have been prevented, and what can the organization do in the future to prevent similar events? Risk, threat, and vulnerability assessment are important in this section of the computer incident report. 
• What other lessons did the team learn? Were there any other takeaways that can help improve the company’s security strategy going forward? 

How to write a security incident report

With a quick online search, you can likely find a cyber security incident report example or template – but oftentimes, you don’t need to go that far to properly execute cyber incident reporting. Our suggestion? Start with the questions above. Write out a thoughtful response to each of those questions, and then organize your report into categories focusing on the five key questions: who, what, when, why, and how. 

What happened? When did it happen? Who was involved in solving the problem? Why did the attack occur? And how can we prevent it in the future? The basic structure of an incident report in security really is that simple.

One of the most important sections in your IT security incident report will be your examination of how the organization can prevent similar issues in the future. You will want to ensure that you outline a clear and concise yet thorough plan for mitigating security risk. Here are some examples of strategies that you might suggest…

• Automated patch management: If your security breach occurred due to an issue with patching, you might suggest putting a better patch management strategy in place. There are many cloud-based IT managed tools available, like Atera, that offer automated patch management to reduce security vulnerabilities. 
• Enhanced security integrations: It is possible that your company needs to invest in more robust security solutions. You could consider an all-in-one RMM software that has plenty of built-in security integrations, which will lend you the protection you need without overcomplicating your IT environment. 
• EDR vs. MDR solutions: You may want to rethink the type of security solution that your company is working with. For instance, if you’ve been comparing EDR vs MDR and currently use an EDR solution but don’t have the internal resources to maximize its efficacy, it might make more sense for your organization to switch to an MDR pathway.
• Security training: If your security breach was a result of malicious actions like phishing emails, it might be time to hold some security training sessions for the company in general. You can help end users learn about avoiding phishing emails and other scams that can put the company’s data and privacy in danger. 

Limit the effects 

According to IBM, the global average cost of a data breach in 2024 is $4.88 million – and that’s a cost that no company wants to incur. Thus, it is important to understand the ins and outs of IT security in today’s modern age. IT security incident reports are an important part of how IT teams handle security breaches and threats. 

We hope we’ve done a good job of teaching you how to write a security incident report that helps secure your organization, along with why they’re valuable and what information they should include. But the learning doesn’t end there, continue poking around our blog and keep your IT mind sharp. As you explore the right security solutions for your organization, we encourage you to consider an all-in-one RMM product that offers industry-leading security integrations to secure your organization. If you’d like to take a test drive of one of these solutions without fully committing, consider signing up for a 30-day free trial with Atera, no credit card required.