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Why Should You Hire a Cybersecurity Documentation Writer?

Cybersecurity is an area of importance for any business. A recent study by EMBROKER concluded that in today’s digital age, 66% of businesses have experienced a cyber attack. One important aspect of cybersecurity is taking care of the related documentation. As such an important subject matter, it would make sense for an organization to have a trained documentation writer for these cybersecurity documentation needs. However, more often than not, organizations’ cybersecurity experts are solely experts on cybersecurity and not necessarily documentation.

Therefore, hiring an outside technical writer can be highly beneficial for an organization. Cybersecurity technical writers come with expertise on the subject of cybersecurity, as well as an arsenal of documentation skills that allow for concise, clear writing that helps readers to understand the often complex topic. They are especially skilled in filtering, gathering, organizing, and communicating the necessary information in a coherent manner. 

Types of Cybersecurity Documentation

The main benefit of cybersecurity is that it protects your company’s IT network, as well as any products that require cybersecurity, from any potential threats. A well-crafted cybersecurity system uses numerous important documents, meaning it is necessary to have a cybersecurity technical writer to create, organize, and update those documents. With a trained documentation writer, you can reap the benefits of a well-designed cybersecurity system. By covering all of these bases, you can address all of the vital areas of cybersecurity documentation for your company. This cybersecurity documentation can include:

Information Security Policy:

This documentation is an essential part of your cybersecurity system. It outlines how the system will work and who will manage it. Specifically, it includes a list of all the daily tasks for maintaining your cybersecurity system and the overall shifting goals of your cybersecurity system as your company grows or adjusts its business processes. By integrating all this data together, you can make an easy-to-understand cybersecurity policy that allows for an urgent and uniform response to any cybersecurity threats.

Disaster Recovery:

Disaster recovery plans are used to quickly repair any damage, shore up weaknesses, and return your business to normal functions after a massive disruption to your IT network, whether from a natural disaster or a malicious attack. Having a disaster recovery plan in place allows you to respond swiftly to a shutdown of your IT infrastructure. Business continuity plans, on the other hand, address any other disruptions to your business in the case of IT failure. The main benefits of these plans are that they offer preventative measures to potential IT issues, as well as planning out what to do if they do happen. This allows for the preservation of any important data, and establishes what steps to take to restore functionality to your IT network. 

Incident Response Plans:

These plans address cybersecurity threats such as ransomware attacks and phishing scams. By having documentation for these plans, you can have a guide for what to do in case of these attacks. Theoretically, your employees would utilize the guidelines of your incident response plan if they were caught in a cyberattack. These plans can also be automated and alert users in the case of a cybersecurity attack. For example, an email suspected of phishing would alert the user, and employees would also be alerted to more sophisticated attacks. While these plans mainly act as a reference, they can also include training exercises or documents that reinforce employee knowledge of cybersecurity. Having this documentation allows you to quickly identify and respond to cyber threats.

While these three kinds of documentation are vital to cybersecurity, a well-designed cybersecurity plan makes use of even more types of documents. For example, risk management documentation would help identify and evaluate potential cybersecurity risks. This then allows for more precision in a cybersecurity system by providing data on what to look out for. Change management policy, meanwhile, is another important piece of cybersecurity documentation, covering any changes to a cybersecurity system.

Other documentation would include documents that fall under business continuity plans or incident response plans. These would include data backup policies that cover the procedures and guidelines about what to do in the case of data corruption, loss, and recovery. Another would be security awareness training, which would provide training documentation for employees to understand how to recognize new cyber threats. These different types of documentation are why it is important for your documentation writer to be both a strong writer and a cybersecurity expert.

Technical Writers and Cybersecurity Documentation

As you read in the previous section, there are numerous kinds of documentation needed for your cybersecurity plan. This documentation is needed to address numerous different areas of concern and must integrate your business goals and resources to properly function. Integrating all this data successfully is important, as it guarantees that your cybersecurity system is performing without impeding any other aspect of your business. This, too, is a reason why your documentation writer needs to be both a strong writer and a cybersecurity expert. As such, technical writers are the perfect experts for this situation. 

Numerous different people use cybersecurity documents, whether they are disaster recovery plans or information security policies. Therefore, in order for your documentation to be most effective, a technical writer needs to break down any complex language into concise writing that anyone can read. The urgent situations caused by a cyberattack make clear writing in your cybersecurity documentation necessary so that workers can quickly respond to these attacks. Your employees can perform calmly in a high-stress situation when they have clear cybersecurity documentation for reference. Clear and concise documentation not only allows for smoother and quicker responses, but also offers clear instructions on how to maintain a cybersecurity system. 

To create these documents, Essential Data’s technical writers would work closely with your business to address all of your documentation needs. Our technical writers would ask questions about topics such as what operating systems your company uses, what products require cybersecurity measures, and what regulatory requirements you need to adhere to. By asking these questions, the technical writers can determine what security goals you need to meet and how they can create the documents you need in order to do so. Therefore, hiring one of Essential Data’s technical writers can solve all of your cybersecurity documentation needs, while you focus on addressing your existing business needs.

Conclusion

Cybersecurity documentation is a necessity for a great cybersecurity system. By having this documentation, you can implement and maintain a cybersecurity system for your company’s networks and software products. You would also have different policies in place to address any kind of cybersecurity threat. The best way to go about obtaining this documentation is through a trained technical writer. When it comes to a complex subject like cybersecurity, technical writers can provide the expertise needed to solve a problem, while also communicating all the essential information to any of your employees. 

How EDC Can Help

Whether you need a team of consultants to produce a complete line of documentation or a single technical writer for a brief project, Essential Data’s Engagement Manager will lead the project from start to finish. At Essential Data Corporation, we guarantee the quality of our work. Contact us today to get started. (800) 221-0093 or sales@edc.us

Written by Stanley Chu