Imagine for a minute that your company falls victim to a cyberattack.
Cybercriminals penetrate your system. As a result, you lose confidential data, and the attack exposes your customers’ personal information. Worst of all, you can’t figure out how to fix it.
That’s why having a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan is vital, regardless of your firm’s size or industry. It ensures you have the necessary measures to prepare for and mitigate the effects of a cyberattack. Most managed cybersecurity services companies offer cybersecurity disaster recovery plans in their portfolios. Their guidance can make initiating one for your business much easier.
Why You Need A Cybersecurity Disaster Recovery Plan
Cyberattacks happen at any time. When they do, it’s better to have an action plan to help protect your business from extensive losses.
First, a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan can help you quickly assess the damage and take necessary steps to contain the problem. Second, it lets you restore your systems and data, thus bringing your operations back online sooner.
What Should You Include In Your Cybersecurity Disaster Recovery Plan?
Your industry of operation can determine the details of your cybersecurity disaster recovery plan. One of the main reasons why is that the service providers may be different.
For example, you may rely on healthcare IT managed services from Isowire or similar providers if you’re in the medical sector. But if you’re in accounting, you should work with a company that specializes in that. Each sector has its own unique requirements, challenges, and regulations to meet, so you should partner with a firm that understands what you need to maintain regular operations.
Some key elements must appear in your cybersecurity disaster recovery plan to be effective. Here are some of them:
- Crisis Communication Strategy
This should indicate how you’ll share information regarding a security breach. It outlines who handles the communications and when this should happen.
For instance, a public relations team can handle contact with the media, while a C-suite team member can talk to the customers. Another member can then manage vendors and the general staff. But you can have one senior member manage all the communications if your firm isn’t that large.
- Hardware And Software Inventory
IT infrastructure is vital to your business’s operations. However, in case of a cyberattack, there are crucial sectors you’ll need to protect first. For this reason, the disaster recovery plan should categorize your IT assets into three parts on a list.
On top of the list will be the most critical applications in your system. These entail features vital for your business to operate. In short, without these critical applications, you will experience indefinite downtime.
Second on the list should be applications you can work without, but only for a short period like a day or two.
Finally, the third category should have applications you can afford to operate without for three or more days.
By categorizing your hardware and software, you can know which ones to prioritize in case a disaster happens. As a result, you can ensure you’re back online sooner. Review your list annually or semi-annually as part of your cybersecurity measures.
- Business Continuity Plan
The business continuity plan involves identifying disaster recovery sites to move your IT infrastructure to during a cyberattack. It defines functions and processes necessary for continuity and who’s responsible for them.
Group the recovery sites into hot, warm, and cold. These three sites should perform automatic backups to help speed the recovery process. The hot site will serve as a data center for high-priority functional IT assets. Next, the warm site will hold critical applications without customer data. Lastly, the cold site will store IT assets that don’t have technology requirements until after the disaster recovery is complete.
- Data Backup, Recovery, And Restoration Plan
Data is the most critical thing in your system. Therefore, you’ll want to have a robust data loss, backup, recovery, and restoration plan.
Your disaster recovery plan should identify and prioritize sensitive information like personally identifiable information. The recovery plan must also indicate who among your team members has access to such data in case of a cyberattack. To help you implement this plan, cybersecurity experts recommend following the 3-2-1 data backup rule.
Furthermore, your system downtime plan should include steps for returning your systems online as quickly as possible Those should cover what to do to contain attacks and prevent future system breaches.
Conclusion
As business operations become more data-centric, you should take the time to put together a robust cybersecurity disaster recovery plan. This primer should encourage you to think about where you should start and how you can implement the security features you need. Keep your business protected now.