Three Keys To A Successful Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan

76 percent of organizations had at least one ransomware attack last year. Current trends indicate that it is not a matter of if your organization will succumb to an attack, but when. It may seem like a conversation your internal stakeholders might kick down the road because it is not a pressing matter until an attack happens but having a successful disaster recovery plan is the only way to mitigate the risk that your organization will face from a ransomware attack. Today, read on about 3 keys to establishing a successful business continuity and disaster recovery plan.

Corresponding Content

• Checklist: How to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan

Run Your Organization Through a Business Impact Analysis

Recovering from data loss, ransomware, or any attack, in general, is not always possible if a company isn’t prepared. Being prepared for the inevitable could save your company from not only losing valuable data but also the capital losses caused by the downtime the organization may experience.

A Business Impact Analysis allows you to go through and examine your systems, workflows, applications, and other factors that are necessary for your business to operate. In this analysis, your organization can determine things like:

• How does an outage affect the organization’s reputation or brand?
• If your organization’s services are unavailable to your customers or your employees, how does that look financially?
• Do clients and employees feel uncertain about the ability of their employer to maintain, a reliable workplace?

Maintain Software and Hardware Best Practices and Test Your Backup Process

Another key to establishing a successful disaster recovery plan is to make sure your organization is in line with hardware and software best practices across the industry. You may be wondering, well what does that exactly mean, and what are these best practices?

• Make sure your versioning is patched
• Reboot your servers
• Make sure you have the capacity for your servers in hardware upgrades

In addition, it’s crucial to test your backups when you have them in place. We highly recommend this, as entering a DR event just to find out the server does not work will lead to massive problems. Your organization can test the issue by spinning up a real DR event and making sure that all applications are tested from a server level.

Implementing Cyber Insurance

The predicted rise in the cybersecurity insurance market between 2022 and 2027 is from $11.9 billion to $29.2 billion. This market has boomed as the demand for protection from cyberattacks has increased over the past years. Cybersecurity insurance is a crucial aspect of developing a successful BCDR plan, as when notified, your insurance can put a freeze on your internal environment. During this freeze, the damage can be inspected, assessed, and reported to the proper authorities. This is meant to serve as complementary to a cybersecurity and BCDR program to ensure your organization is fully protected and ready to mitigate any form of risk.

Corresponding Content:

• Cyber Insurance Minimums Checklist

Dataprise Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning services help your organization assess your current level of maturity and develop strategies, procedures, and documentation that enable your organization to continue essential functions and restore IT services following a disaster. If you would like to learn more about how Dataprise can be a fit for your organization in setting up a successful BCDR plan, feel free to download and refer to our latest data sheet.

The Importance of a Business Impact Analysis and How it Works in a Disaster Recovery Situation