Security incident reports are important documents when it comes to investigating any form of breach or situation that threatens the security of the organization. They are effective in providing detailed and accurate reports of events not only to the organization but also to the clients. Security officers are usually in charge of making this type of report but anyone in the organization, especially if you don’t have security officers, can make this. Read the article to find out how to make a security incident report.
10+ Security Incident Report Form Samples
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What is a Security Incident Report?
A security incident report letter is a formal document that contains all the information about a particular incident that is being reported. An incident report should outline the different events regarding the incident and recommends actions to be taken in the future to avoid the recurrence of the incident.
How to Write an Incident Report Letter
1. Follow Your Company’s Protocol
Find out if your organization has its own set of protocols to deal with incidents around the facility and find out if there is a procedure for writing incident reports. If your organization has a format or template to follow, follow them. If your company does not have a template, you can refer to our sample incident reports provided above and you can use it to format your incident report and even suggest using the template as a basis for your official incident report.
2. Write Your Report as Soon as Possible
When an incident occurs, the first thing to do is to jot down the basic facts as soon as possible, no matter what the incident. This is helpful to remember all the things that happened in the situation. After the incident is being attended to or has been resolved, an incident report must be written right away. The report should be sent in at most 48 hours after the incident happened. Writing the incident as soon as possible with the memory still vivid in your mind can make your report more accurate to the incident that happened.
3. Outline the Facts
Always remember that the incident report should contain the 5 Ws and an H: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. This will guide you greatly in writing a thorough and factual report. To elaborate on this, the statements below are what you should answer when writing the report:
- The time and date of the incident (when)
- The location of the incident (where)
- Your name as the writer of the report (who)
- The name of other individuals involved in the incident (who)
- The overview of the occurrence (what)
- A detailed description of the incident. Write about the incident in the sequence of occurrence (or in chronological order) using the first-person point of view narrative (how)
After narrating the whole incident, conclude your report by suggesting proactive measures to be taken to avoid the incident from reoccurring. When writing the report keep the language of your report formal. Use proper punctuation and capitalization. Include direct quotes from witnesses and other people involved in the incidents. Attach documents or files pertaining to the incident to your report.
FAQs
What are the types of security incidents?
The main types of security incidents are brute force attacks, email attacks, and web attacks.
What are the objectives of security?
The objectives of security are confidentiality, integrity, availability, and nonrepudiation.
What is the impact of security breaches?
Security breaches pose huge risks to businesses because they could lose a lot of revenue and threaten the confidentiality of data of the businesses that could threaten their privacy and identity.
Describing an incident accurately is not easy as it seems because some events that people remember and recall will get muddled up and some information might be different from what actually happened. So it’s important to recheck all important details to make sure the report has the correct details. Before submitting your report, reread to make sure it is readable and understandable. Have a colleague help you review your report to make sure it is a good and accurate security incident report.
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