What are the most effective ways to stay organized in information security?

One fundamental myth many security career aspirants get stuck with is thinking that all cybersecurity careers are purely technical and engineering. Where as if you talk to the leaders in Cybersecurity they consider business context first then the business technology landscape and then comes cybersecurity from a business risk management and compliance perspective! The board prefers to listen to technical experts who talk the business language that the Board understands. So never lose focus that cybersecurity lives for business and its stakeholders and other way around! That is a sure way to not lose focus and stay organized.

Using the SMART criteria can help in making your goals more actionable, motivating, and achievable. Furthermore it is not only related to informatiom security, it can be applied on any other major.

To stay organized in information security, security professionals should: Set SMART goals and priorities. Use a ticketing system and knowledge base. Use SOAR tools to automate tasks. Communicate and collaborate regularly. Stay up to date on the latest threats and trends.

The biggest challenge in security is balancing our time between taking care of today(our demanding day-to-day work) and preparing for tomorrow(Continuous leaning through various mediums). Estimate how much time will each activity take, at least a ballpark. Try to stick to your timelines and don't beat yourself up over missed milestones. If you happen to see the data for cost/schedule overrun of projects across the world, you will feel better. :) Being technically sound will help you in this field, but without clear communication, it is difficult to implement your plans. Communicate/Delegate as much as possible. Networking can save a lot of time on the learning front. Do weekly self review and stay organized.

Throughout my tenure in cybersecurity, setting clear objectives has been the cornerstone of my strategic direction. SMART goals are more than an acronym; they’re a philosophy. Particularly in a field as vast and varied as information security, clarity is paramount. To envision the cybersecurity landscape is to comprehend a myriad of shifting paradigms—each with distinct threat vectors. By determining what's vital and aligning it with the SMART framework, you not only establish a clear trajectory but also ensure that every effort propels you towards tangible results.

This is probably the hardest part for me and others. With so many items crying out for our time, it is critical that we understand our priorities, the priorities of the people around us, and the ability to recognize when they change. For me this is an almost constant reflection on lists. Simple lists have enabled me to take the swirling ideas out of my head and make them real, which means I can track those priorities.

When I started the DRJJBMJ Study Hall on Discord, it was out of pure necessity. As I got the study hall sessions going with a handful of members, we were grinding every night. After taking practice tests and answering questions together, we became certified. While this led to a successful result, I knew the approach had to change. Creating a schedule was vital to be sustainable and create a balance for other tasks and responsibilities. Time-blocking is paramount in keeping yourself organized. Understand the tasks you want to accomplish and designate a realistic time frame to complete them to move on to the next task.

While not the only demanding industry, cybersecurity, in particular, has its own unique set of challenges, and throughout my career, I've seen too many talented professionals burn their candles at both ends and fail to recognize burnout before it's too late. We've all experienced, or at least seen, issues with health, alcohol consumption, poor relationships, and so much more due to improper setting of expectations, poor management of time, unrealistic expectations, etc. As leaders, we set the tone, and our actions will trickle down. Yes, we need to better manage our time and tasks at work, but that's not where it ends; managing our time is a 7/24/365 job.

Onenote has personally saved my life when it comes to organizing. My personal one has a tab for every product we have with subsabs for everything I've done with it, or tribal knowledge I've learned along the way, and contact info/how to get ahold of support. Main tabs I have are weekly agendas that have a table for things I know I have to accomplish and tables to track side things people need my help for. ( mainly for time tracking). And tabs for to lists for product specific tasks that haven't made it to the main agenda yet.

It's important to consider each task based on its importance, urgency and alignment with your goals. Take the Eisenhower Matrix which involves dividing tasks into four categories: important and urgent, important but not urgent, not important but urgent, and not important and not urgent. This matrix makes prioritisation much more straightforward.

Documentation is key, as it helps us keep track of the work being done, especially any reasoning behind certain decisions made. Anything from design details, risks addressed, risks introduced, deadlines, follow-up tasks ideally must be documented, ideally in a central location. It also helps you to be more organized with your work. Furthermore, it allows an efficient handover of work, especially if you are a consultant of a project, called in for a short time period, helping the person taking over to understand the current situation, plans, issues tracked etc.

Create an incident response plan: a set of instructions that helps us react quickly and effectively when something goes wrong during a cyber attack. It also keeps everyone informed so they know what to do and prevents panic. This plan should have, at the very least: - Clear roles for different people or teams, so everyone knows their job and what they're responsible for. - Guidelines for how to communicate within your organization and with your partners during and after an incident. - Practice sessions (planned and unplanned) where you test cyber attacks to rehearse your actions. This also helps us update the plan and avoid making things up on the spot.

It's basic, but fundamental: start with information security policies and procedures tailored to your company. There's a reason if it's a key requirement of ISO 27001: documenting your information security organisation and processes will make things easier over the long run. Of course, it's not a one-time action. Documenting your work is one thing, updating your documentation is another one. Make sure you implement quarterly reviews of your information security documentation. Of course, you can scope these reviews according to your current priorities and resources. Just make sure your system doesn't let an important document unrevised over time.

Not only is documentation important, but organization of the information as well. Having all the information but not easily accessible or searchable is just as bad as having almost no documentation at all. Use of curated, shared note systems with templates for input and conventions for naming, tagging, and input are good ways to wrangle the vast amount of meta data and actual information generated. For larger orgs and enterprises, consider implementing an internal AI to help with retrieval of the information and presenting it in a consumable format. Be warned that this route can have its own drawbacks due to potential data leaks and recall inaccuracies, so be sure to double check access control and have the AI cite the entries it sources.

The quality and completeness of documentation is one of the key factors in the maturity and effectiveness of an information security program. If a program requires competent people engaged in heroics to solve issues or has processes and procedures that include an individuals name, then you still have a long way to get to the level of risk reduction needed. This applies to everything from the IR plan, to operational run books, the risk registry, training, polices, and more. Also understand, in high compliance environments it can often be more important to be able to report that something was done, than to actually have done the thing. Meaning doing it isn't enough, documenting that you did it is required or it never happened.

Program management and project management are also things to consider. Being organized, in part, means have a strategy and objectives and being able to track you progress against them. The program objectives keep you focused on your strategy. Create your project plans with a set of deliverables and keep yourself committed to the plan. Make sure they are well defined with resources, timelines and budgets. There will be distractions, it is just the nature of security. But once the fires are put out, get back to your plan. Adjust it when you need to. Over time things will get done and hopefully reduce the number of fires. It takes focus and commitment, but it can be done.

Unfortunately, the evolving landscape of Information Security ecosystem requires us to stay organized in order to deal with the many changes that may be thrown at us in our day to day operations. That is why it is important to consider mental models and frameworks to help you stay organized, make decisions, check for blind spots and focus on the company's goals. Build a baseline strategy with multiple models that you can easily pivot off of but also stay aligned with the overall strategy. Mental models play a crucial role in enhancing our decision-making capabilities and expediting the learning process. These models serve as invaluable instruments for simplifying intricate concepts, making them indispensable across various professions.

There are so many tools that can help you keep track of the things that might seem overwhelming - for example, the management of the human element. Utilise them!

Staying organised in general is a soft skill through a long term strategic goals and short term objectives. However, the technical domain knowledge forms the basis of everything as you may know how to prioritise but don’t know how to execute them efficiently

Leveraging frameworks like NIST or ITSG is an excellent idea to structure and track documentation relating to your information security program. They provide tools as well as the artifacts needed to satisfy different stages of an implementation. For example. A Business Needs for Security document should outline the need and security profile. Any details left out in this document would affect your design stages later on. Suppose you did not specify a HIGH profile for availability in the BNS, that would mean that a single point of failure or DOS is deemed acceptable and designing a system with high availability would be over spec.

SBOMS for example became a new requirement which required the capture and tracking of new information. NIST, ITSG and other frameworks often publish updates with improvements as well as changes but it's also worth noting that even though some appear the same, they may be based of different versions. For example the current ITSG is largely based off NIST v4 whereas the current NIST is at v5. Often enough updates come with improvements to techniques or removal of some items so it's critical to stay up to date on the latest.

The cybersecurity realm is an ever-shifting landscape, with new challenges emerging daily. It’s not enough to rest on past laurels. I often liken our field to an unending game of chess, where both sides continually evolve their strategies. Being updated isn't a mere recommendation—it's the lifeblood of relevance. Whether it's a new attack vector, regulatory landscape, or technological advancement, staying informed ensures we’re not just reacting but anticipating and innovating.

Staying organized in information security is essential for maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data. Many avenues can be used with different outcomes in terms of effectiveness. Yet , a constant remains which revolves around the following three key points Asset Inventory: Maintain a comprehensive inventory of all hardware, software, and data assets. Robust Policies and Procedures: Develop and enforce clear security policies and procedures. Regular Training and Testing: Continuously educate employees on security best practices and conduct regular testing and simulations of security incidents.

Here are same ways according to me we can stay organized in Cyber Security: 1. Have very clear and effective communication 2. Align vison, set expectations and define roadmap. 3. Define clear role and responsibility in your team. 4. Deploy cyber security agents/champions in other Tech teams 5. Have a agile based dashboard view of work for your team

A bit tactical, but from a tool standpoint I love mind maps. I have yet to find a system for the organization and visualization of information that is quicker or more effective. I personally have one for each day and then I pull forward the various trees and branches into other maps that are either topic specific or work carried onto the next day. When I put them all together at the end of a year, it looks like a massive neural network of interconnected thoughts, tasks, and relationships. A great way to bring order to chaos that is also very easy to export and search when needed.

Imposter syndrome in cybersecurity is real… professionals often question their competence despite possessing the required knowledge and skills. Here’s how you combat this nagging problem… 1. Embrace Continuous Learning… that’s how you keep up with this ever evolving domain 2. Learn from Mistakes…It’s ok to make mistakes… Understand that nobody knows everything in cybersecurity. 3. Gain a certification that recognises your accomplishments as evidence of competence. 4. Don’t shy away from seeking support from peers and mentor. 5. Last, BUT NOT THE LEAST… fake it until you make it!

Treat Security as priority better late than never! Effective communication & collaboration between teams. Try to have minimal tools & effective management of those, multiple products & agents at times is a pain!

A great way to stay organised and ahead of expectations is to establish regular connects with your business to gauge business activities and future interests/investments. It does not help when you strengthen on premise controls but majority of your business is thinking cloud. Empowering business to securely do transactions in an organised manner using all the above comments and suggestions will help to install security culture and seek out support for security programs in your organisation.