Drafting compliance reports and statements of compliance/non-compliance can have sweeping organizational impacts with legal, reputation, and regulatory consequences. Learn how to write carefully and accurately to protect your team, business, and bottom line.

Learn how to draft a risk framework, whether it’s fully customized for your organization, or pulls from existing risk frameworks and standards (i.e. NIST, ISO, COBIT, COSO, ASIS, PCI, etc.)

Risk statements are the core of any thorough risk assessment, however they are often missing essential components to drive impact and accuracy. We teach both customized and formulaic approaches to drafting impactful risk statements that align security teams and simplify complex systems so leadership can act on your findings and recommendations.

Narrative-style objective writing for security professionals, focused on creating accurate, concise, defensible, and relevant reports following a security incident.

Focused on analysis, this module provides the language you need to convey your analysis, levels of certainty, and alternative perspectives within your risk reporting.

This module covers many topics, including voice, tone, grammar, audience, and approach. We answer questions about whether you are expected to have opinions (and if so, how to convey them effectively), or remain objective. We cover writing in active voice, frequent security-writing pitfalls, and include tips and tricks for non-native English speakers in security. This module takes a full day and is customizable based on attendee needs.

Do you need to submit an alternative analysis of a situation or decision to leadership without spending political capital, stepping on toes, or directly contradicting the primary narrative? Alternative Analysis reports are your best tool! We teach how to broaden your perspective and put your ideas into writing to influence your leadership into considering alternative actions, decisions, and perspectives.

You have tested your security, now what? Effective reports determine whether your findings are actioned or ignored. We cover voice, tone, approach, level of specificity, and much more needed to create impactful and long-lasting reports. We also discuss alternative ways to showcase key red team findings and right times to use these alternatives.

Risk Assessments are essential components for any security organization. In this module we cover assessment context, background, templates, approach, and the most effective way to convey findings to ensure they are acted upon. The module also covers frequent pitfalls and items to pay attention to in order protect yourself, your product, and your company.

This module is focused on maximizing your impact through writing. Through a combination of telling stories, giving examples, citing data, and contextualizing the information you are communicating, you can craft highly effective messages. Whether to leadership, co-workers, the public, or others – this course ensures your writing gets the attention it deserves.

Drafting copy for publication, speeches for leadership, or transcripts for awareness videos – being able to effectively convey your security practices in simple, compelling, and fun ways are essential for successful security awareness training.

Can you still say “Blacklisted”, or “Master Key”, or have those terms gone out of style? We cover common terms that may be considered problematic, alternatives to these terms, and simple non-political ways to move your writing forward without causing discomfort or reputational issues within your organization.

Picture this: you are in the weeds every day and know more than anyone about a security incident, system, or process. You are then asked to brief leadership in two minutes about this thing that you have spent six months working on. How do you figure out the key takeaways, and provide only the relevant information in a clear, compelling way that gets both you and leadership what is needed? Whether you are communicating in PowerPoint, Writing a Document/Memo/Report, or providing a verbal brief, we will cover the process for identifying your goals, finding the right combination of stories, data, facts, case studies, narrative, and compelling statements to get the job done.

Framing is an essential and often-overlooked component of writing for security professionals. Effective framing can be a security professional’s magic bullet to convince the reader of specific facts or opinions – regardless of the type of report you are writing. See – we just framed framing as underutilized panacea of the writing world. We could have just as easily said that framing is the foundation of writing that touches every sentence, or that it is a writing mechanism reserved for only the most advanced practitioners.

Students will learn how to identify the goal of their writing and frame their narrative to achieve those objectives.  

Methods for effectively using Word and Google Docs. This course covers intermediate and advanced functions such as document compare and combine, advanced formatting, setting themes, and minimizing common errors (saving, formatting, etc.) that slow you down and take focus off impactful work. You will be a more effective analyst, author, manager, and leader after using these essential software tools more effectively.

Do you ever find yourself working on multiple versions of a document, editing an old version, or working simultaneously with coworker but on different documents? Whether you are using local storage, SharePoint, Google Docs, DropBox, Box.com, Tresorit, or one of the many additional filesharing apps – we will cover effective version control to minimize frustration and wasted time.

Essential Excel tips and tricks for security professionals. From investigations to analysis, report writing, and more – we cover a wide array of use-cases for Microsoft Excel (or Google Sheets upon request). There are basic (formulas, functions, formatting, and more), intermediate (Pivot Tables, Graphs, etc.), and advanced (VBA, Plugins, etc.) components of this course upon request.

AI swept into the mainstream of administrative workplaces and public discord. These tools, when used correctly, can provide significant support to security professionals. AI can help improve writing, scale impact, develop creative solutions, challenge conventional thinking, and aid in brainstorming or scenario development. Security concerns, embedded bias, difficult user interfaces, and hallucinations also exist in most available AI systems. In this course, we cover how to leverage these new tools without falling into any common traps. When used smartly, AI can provide a significant benefit to security professionals.

Do you have specific use-cases, writing styles, or quality trends that you would like addressed by our security communication consulting team? Let’s develop custom courses or modules together to meet your needs. Schedule time to discuss your needs – we’re looking forward to hearing from you!