This is Part 3 in my ongoing project to cover 30 cybersecurity topics in 30 weekly blog posts.
Creating documentation for anything is perhaps the least interesting job any employee has, but there are plenty of good reasons to do it. Let’s discuss the whys and hows of effective cybersecurity documentation.
The Benefits of Having Good Documentation
For Communication
As a communication tool, we need documentation to share our knowledge with others. The worst thing that can happen is you have a brainiac who knows everything but shares nothing and one day decides to leave your company with no documentation left behind.
For Projects
In addition, when we work with other business groups or outsiders like consultants, good documentation saves a lot of time and money getting them started on a project. Good documentation can even provide a ‘contractual foundation’ to the scope of a project, holding team leaders accountable for the written details provided.
For Operations
Processes and Procedures in Cybersecurity are critical. Just like for the system operations teams, security operations must know what to do when a security incident occurs. Having detailed and well-rehearsed incident response processes and procedures are critical.
For Compliance
When a security audit occurs (and for many organizations, this is a certainty), one of the first questions will be to see your processes and procedures.
Quick Tips On Scoping Documentation for Architecture, Operations, and Compliance
Architecture Docs: Start with Frameworks
Find one or more security frameworks that are relative to your needs.
An example is the Microsoft Well-Architected Framework. This site provides both detailed documentation and wizard-guided assessments to help develop both an architecture framework as well as the associated documentation for that architecture. This framework provides several checklists for key 'pillars' of architecture relative to Azure and the on-prem environment. Topics include:
- Reliability
- Security
- Cost Optimization
- Operational Excellence
- Performance Efficiency
Operations
If you follow some form of compliance controls, then benchmarks may provide a structure that will guide your documentation needs. The Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark contains hundreds of controls that can be mapped to other controls, such as NIST and CIS. All these guides provide clarity on operational processes and procedures.
Compliance
Some security vendors provide access to resources for templates, checklists, and documentation that can make your documentation process much easier. Trustwave provides the Security Colony portal for contracted customers. More examples include the policies and procedures at CIO.GOV and StateRAMP.
A Hybrid Approach to Security Documentation
Auditing, Architecture, and Security Operations documentation don’t necessarily have to be built in silos, and often there are great benefits to understanding the relationships between the three. Consider mapping out the relationships between your frameworks, compliance, and operational needs. In many cases, a manually generated document is unnecessary because an operational technology is available to perform the action. For example, a SIEM may generate some reports needed for compliance, which include all the required processes and procedures as part of the output.
Summary
Using frameworks and benchmarks provided by vendors and regulation branches can be a good approach to compiling your security architecture and documentation needs. Understanding the relationships between security architecture, compliance and operations can give us a better understanding to where documents are needed, or a technology is the requirement.
References:
https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/53/r5/upd1/final
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/
https://portal.securitycolony.com/
About This Blog Series
Follow the full series here: Building Defenses with Modern Security Solutions
This series discusses a list of key cybersecurity defense topics. The full collection of posts and labs can be used as an educational tool for implementing cybersecurity defenses.
Labs
For quick walkthrough labs on the topics in this blog series, check out the story of “ZPM Incorporated” and their steps to implementing all the solutions discussed here.
Compliance
All topics mentioned in this series have been mapped to several compliance controls here.
