No matter how prepared your business is, you still have a chance to become a victim of a cyber attack. Even with advanced lead time, cybercriminals have many opportunities to attack your business infrastructure. There are several ways to give your business the best shot of preventing an attack, but you need to be prepared if you may not always be able to stop a cyber-criminal. A business continuity plan can give your business the best chance to be prepared to manage a security breach.
Having a plan in place helps prevent extensive damage to your business, possibly putting you out of business for good. How do you create a business continuity plan to safeguard your business’s future?
Establish a Business Continuity Team – Depending on your organization’s size, you want to ensure you have a good team of people to help you execute your business continuity plan in the event of a disaster. Include at least one person from every department to facilitate instructions and processes on the next steps.
Conduct a Business Impact Analysis – A business impact analysis will help you identify the most vulnerable areas that could threaten your business’s operations. It’s an analysis of critical functions of your business and each of those functions’ particular vulnerability and the impact a prolonged disruption will cause.
Identify and Store Critical Stakeholders, Resources, and Functions – Identify contacts within your business that you need to keep your business functioning. Create an emergency or backup contact list that includes essential information on each person or entity and ensure that information is up to date. The contact list should include information such as point of contacts names, addresses, and an outline of their function in supporting your business. Having a contact list allows you to keep your lines of communication open to inform stakeholders of critical situations in the event of an attack.
Create a Recovery Plan – If a cyber attack does occur, you will need to draft a recovery plan to implement steps to recover critical business functions. You want to minimize your losses and get your team back to normal operations.
Consistently Review and Revise Your Plan – Your business continuity plan should be routinely tested and updated to ensure the plan will work when you need it to. As your business evolves, testing the plan can ensure no gaps or flaws in your processes and allows you to address any issues. Conduct regular simulations with your team and continuously improve to ensure you are properly prepared.
You can take many security measures to ensure your business does not fall victim to one of the many cyber attacks that are possible in the digital landscape. Even with advanced security, nothing is ever certain, and you want to ensure your business is protected.
AE Technology Group believes that businesses can take many steps to prepare for such emergencies, and it all starts with a data backup and disaster recovery service. We can assist you with implementing such a policy for your organization to ensure that problems don’t disrupt your operations.
For more information, contact us at (516) 536-5006.
