The last thing you want in the midst of an emergency is to find your data security compromised and your business suffering the one-two punch of a disaster and a data breach. Unfortunately, a crisis is usually when you are at your most vulnerable.
Having a detailed response plan that includes effective cybersecurity strategies prepares you so that, when disaster strikes, your business can avoid the nightmare scenario and quickly recover and continue operating. In this guide, we'll explore how to effectively integrate cybersecurity into your disaster recovery plan.
Understand the overlap between cybersecurity and disaster recovery
First off, recognize that cybersecurity isn’t just about stopping hackers — it’s also about protecting your business’s ability to function during and after a disaster. A cyberattack can be a disaster in itself, causing data loss, system outages, and financial damage in lost revenue and recovery costs.
That’s why it’s crucial to treat cybersecurity as an integral part of your disaster recovery plan and not a separate thing. So, go into planning for a catastrophe with a “security first” mindset, as your swift recovery won’t mean much if it’s met with a data breach.
Conduct a comprehensive risk assessment
Start by performing a detailed risk assessment that includes both physical and digital threats to businesses in your industry and region. Evaluate the potential impact of cyberattacks, natural disasters, and other threats on your operations. Ask yourself questions such as:
- What critical data or systems can your business not operate without?
- What is the maximum duration your business can operate without access to essential data or systems?
- What steps have you already taken to protect your digital assets, and where are your efforts lagging?
The answers to these questions will help you develop a disaster recovery plan that covers the right bases, ensuring resources and attention go to where they are needed most.
Create a cyber incident response plan
A cyber incident response plan is your manual for responding to cyberthreats when they arise. Just as you have procedures in place for physical emergencies such as fire drills, you need a clear, step-by-step plan for responding to cyber incidents.
Your incident response plan should cover the following items:
- Roles and responsibilities: Assign specific tasks to employees. Clearly establish who will communicate with customers and who will work with your IT provider to restore systems.
- Communication strategies: Determine how you’ll keep employees, customers, and stakeholders informed during and after a cyber incident.
- Recovery priorities: Lay out which critical systems need to be restored and checked first, and where staff should focus their efforts to ensure the swiftest possible return to operations.
Regularly test this plan with your team through simulations and updates to ensure everyone knows what to do in the event of a cyber emergency.
Implement resilient data backup solutions
Your business can’t survive without its critical data, and both digital and physical disasters can threaten it. That’s why reliable and effective data backups are crucial for protecting your business from a wide variety of threats.
Automated, cloud-powered data backups ensure you always have the data you need to continue operations even if ransomware locks your servers or a flood wipes out all your workstations. There are a lot of threats that can force your business to shut down, but up-to-date data backups that can be restored quickly protect you from a great deal of them.
Employee training and awareness
Once you understand the importance of cybersecurity in disaster response, ensure your employees do too. Train them on:
- The cyberthreats that can cause a disaster, and those that crop up during unrelated emergencies
- Best practices for handling and restoring sensitive data during and after a crisis
- How to spot suspicious activity and communications as well as how to respond to prevent an incident
- Your company’s incident reporting protocols to ensure prompt and proper reporting of potential threats
Work with a managed IT services provider
Integrating cybersecurity into your day-to-day operations is tough enough, and planning your cyber incident response during a disaster adds a whole new layer of complexity. To ensure your business has an ironclad disaster response and recovery plan, consider working with a managed IT services provider like Healthy IT to benefit from expert knowledge.
We’ve been in business for over 25 years, and our team will use their extensive experience to make sure your business can swiftly recover from whatever life throws at it.
To get started, call our office at 631-857-4964 or click here to book your 10-Minute Discovery Call now.