Incident Documentation and Reporting

Thorough documentation during and after a security incident serves multiple purposes: supports investigation, meets legal reporting requirements, provides evidence for insurance claims, and enables process improvement. Good habits during an incident must be developed before one occurs. What to document in real time: exact timestamps of when each event was noticed and each action taken, system names and IP addresses involved, exact error messages and screenshots, names of who was notified and when, external parties contacted (vendor, law enforcement, insurance), and actions taken (system isolated, password reset, etc.). Post-incident report structure: Executive Summary (one paragraph for management), Timeline (chronological events), Scope (what was affected), Root Cause Analysis (how did the attacker get in, what allowed them to persist), Impact Assessment (data accessed, business disruption), Remediation Actions (what was done), and Recommendations (preventive measures). Retain incident documentation for a minimum of 3 years — longer if litigation is possible. Many cyber insurance policies require incident documentation to process claims.