No organization is safe from cyberattacks, and they are becoming more frequent and damaging.
Having a cybersecurity recovery plan in place shows that an organization has taken steps to maintain operations during an incident and restore business as quickly as possible. We will discuss what a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan entails and the 5 must-have strategies for developing a successful one.
What Is a Cybersecurity Disaster Recovery Plan?
Cybersecurity disaster recovery plans (often referred to simple as “DR” by security experts) should act as a roadmap and deal with organizational disasters resulting from cyber threats, such as data breaches or malware and ransom attacks. They are intended to prevent or minimize data loss.
Here are a few critical elements for any cybersecurity disaster recovery plan:
1. Business continuity
Your top priority should be to ensure that your business can maintain operations during and immediately after an attack. Full recovery can be time-consuming and impact your organization significantly. If business continuity is prioritized and protected, your business will continue generating revenue without incurring large costs.
2. Data protection
Breaches related to sensitive customer and company data can be very costly. Ensuring data is always secured throughout an incident is essential in protecting your business and customers. This includes minimizing data accessibility, reducing data loss, and ensuring data backups occur when the threat is no longer present.
3. Loss minimization
There are multiple factors that go into the losses your organization can experience during a cybersecurity disaster. These include financial losses, legal ramifications, and hits to your reputation. Therefore, your cybersecurity disaster recovery plan needs to minimize these losses.
4. Communication
You will need a plan around how to communicate cybersecurity incidents both internally and externally to stakeholders. This could be an incident response team or leadership relaying information but defining clear lines of communication is essential for any cybersecurity disaster recovery plan.
5. Restoration
Ultimately, the goal of any disaster recovery plan is to return operations back to normal. Your plan should detail the process of moving from business continuity to full recovery and improvement.
6. Improvements
Organizations should record information through a disaster recovery process. They should include information on how the incident occurred, how it was managed, and what improvements can be made in the future. This could be used to improve incident prevention and make seamless procedures for the future.
Essential Steps in Your Cybersecurity Disaster Recovery Plan
Your cybersecurity disaster recovery plan should focus on maintaining business continuity. Listed below are key steps that the development of any cybersecurity disaster recovery plan should include.
1. Choose The Right Authorities
You need trusted advisors that can lead your disaster recovery plan.
Many businesses decide to outsource these responsibilities by hiring an IT support service provider. They will lighten the burden by evaluating the potential risks and crafting a personalized recovery plan for your organization.
Finally, you should designate an individual internally that will sign off on a final plan and can execute that plan if a cybersecurity disaster were to occur. This could be a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or the head of your IT department.
2. Determine Potential Threats
Identifying your most significant potential threats is one of the most essential phases of your cybersecurity disaster recovery plan.
Potential hacks, attacks, breaches, and exploits can face different risks, so it is important to understand the impact associated if these events were to occur.
Once you understand the likelihood and impact of these different threats, you will be able to develop a plan to address and minimize them. The first step of your plan should include implementing an ongoing monitoring program. This will allow your organization to identify a threat before it is too late.
3. Invest in Prevention Measures
It is as important to invest in prevention measures as it is for recovery with a cybersecurity disaster. You will save your organization time and money by ensuring you are protected from cybersecurity threats.
A few examples of preventive measures are:
- Implementing firewalls and VPNs that allow you to control traffic and accessibility within your network
- Staying on top of updates and upgrades will help minimize vulnerabilities with software
- Internal content controls stop unauthorized users access to important data or applications
- Accessibility limitations will lower the potential of sensitive data leaking
- Educating your staff on best practices for cybersecurity and enforcing a strong cybersecurity policy
4. Develop a Response Plan
The first step in a response plan is to prioritize business continuity. The steps you take need to ensure that your business will continue to maintain operations during and immediately after an attack.
You should find alternative channels, services, and facilities as backups in case your primary resources have been compromised.
The next step should include how you will conduct communication. If there is a threat underway, how will you communicate internally to your organization? How will you announce to stakeholders and public?
Finally, you should ensure that protocols are in place that are tracking recovery metrics. This should include data on how quickly you responded to a threat in the past. As well as how much time it took for business to get back to full operations.
5. Improve and Reevaluate
The last step should establish protocols for documenting cybersecurity threats.
Protocols include evaluating how well your cybersecurity disaster recovery is performing. As well as making improvements as needed. The key to great cybersecurity strategies is to constantly make improvements.
The more proactive your organization is with their cybersecurity strategy, the better protected you will be against the rising number of business threats.
How NetGain Technologies Can Help
Many businesses overlook developing a reliable and practicable cybersecurity disaster recovery plan. If you want to avoid significant disruption to your business and suffering from unrecoverable damage, it is essential to create a cybersecurity disaster recovery plan.
As a trusted managed service provider since 1984, our team of cloud security experts and experienced technicians will craft a disaster recovery solution that you can rely on when you need it.
If you have an existing cybersecurity disaster recovery plan that needs to be tested and reviewed, or if you need help creating one, book a free consultation!
