Creating a Cyber Security Disaster Recovery Plan

Cyber-attacks can affect any organisation in any field. Attacks are becoming more common and more damaging than ever. They can corrupt your data and hold it at ransom until you fulfil their demands. This can result in permanent data loss and cause havoc for your business for any number of days or weeks, depending on the available solutions.

Following a cyber-attack, the data recovery can be costly, your business could lose its competitive advantage, and you can sometimes experience a long period of downtime during the attack itself.

Why do I Need a Cyber Security Disaster Recovery Plan?

A cyber security disaster recovery plan will provide an organisation with a plan of action when it comes to cyber security incidents, including an attack or a data breach.

Some of the main reasons your business needs are cyber security disaster recovery plan are;

Safeguarding your Sensitive and Confidential Data – If a cyber-attack involves a breach of sensitive customer or corporate data, it can significantly amplify the costs and consequences. The ransom is usually increased, and the risk of sharing this data is also high. Therefore, safeguarding your data is imperative to protecting the business and its customers, clients and stakeholders.

Reduce Impacts and Losses and Ensure Business Continuity – In some cases, cyber-attacks can result in high expenses. In the worst cases, they can sometimes even force companies to close completely. A good disaster recovery plan will incorporate strategies which ensure operational continuity and safeguard critical assets; this minimises overall costs and losses. If an organisation can continue to work through an attack, then the overall costs are significantly reduced.

Get back On-track ASAP – The ultimate objective of any disaster recovery plan is to restore business operations so that your organisation can trade as normal as quickly as possible. A good Cybersecurity disaster recovery plan will outline the process of how to transition from business continuity to complete recovery following the attack. Getting your business back on track and running at full capacity ASAP will further reduce the cost of the attack.

Communicate and Update – Effective management of cybersecurity attacks includes the right level of communication with your stakeholders, whether they are within or outside the organisation. They usually use an incident response team to keep leadership, regulators, and customers updated with the correct level of information. By establishing clear lines of communication, your organisation can efficiently manage the incident and ensure you’re meeting legal and regulatory obligations.

Evaluate and Enhance – It’s essential to ensure your plan is up-to-date with regulations and uses the best technology. To keep on top of this, it’s best to evaluate your disaster recovery plan regularly and make changes where required.

Developing a Cyber Security Disaster Recovery Plan

There are several steps to developing a disaster recovery plan. At InReach, cyber security is one of our services, so creating a plan is something we can do for any business of any size in any industry.

1. Appoint a Plan Owner

It is crucial for a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan to have a designated owner who will lead the recovery process and be readily accessible when required. For this, you’ll need someone in an IT support organisation to help as well as someone in-house to be responsible for carrying out any actions.

1. Identify Vital Assets

Identifying vital assets and ensuring that they’re accessible means the chance of maintaining operations remains high, and business can continue throughout the attack. Identifying critical assets is vital in developing plans to protect and restore them quickly and efficiently.

3. Risk Assessment 

Conducting a full risk assessment for all data and processes can help your business evaluate the assets within your business and create a full plan of action for any incident. This could include anything from cyber-attacks to power cuts and so on.

4. Backup Plans and Strategies 

A good disaster recovery plan will include a plan for regularly backing up critical assets and protecting the data from attacks. With a clear understanding of what requires protection, our disaster recovery team will be able to devise strategies for backups and manage the risks.

Support from InReach – Getting started with your Cyber Security Disaster Recovery Plan

If your business is in the process of creating a disaster recovery plan for cyber security attacks, then now could be the time to seek external support.

At InReach, we have experience in running IT and communication systems in many different organisations. We use our expertise to help businesses plan for disaster recovery and carry out the necessary actions to mitigate risks for your business when it comes to cyber-attacks.

For more information or to discuss your disaster recovery plan for your business, contact us today.

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