The risks of a weak business continuity plan

With the exponential evolution of the technology age, people and businesses are able to do more, do it faster, and do it better than ever before. While these technological advancements mean increased productivity and output for organizations, they also put those very same organizations at risk. In other words, it isn’t enough to just protect your data; it has never been more important to have a comprehensive, inclusive business continuity plan in place. Here are just a few things that can significantly damage your organization if you aren’t prepared.

1. You think disaster recovery and business continuity are the same concept.

Many business owners (and blog readers) think that business continuity and disaster recovery plans are the same thing. While it is true that a good business continuity strategy includes a disaster recovery plan, and they are connected, they account for different things and thus should be treated as independent from each other. A disaster recovery plan is exactly what you think it is, as defined by the Disaster Recovery Journal as, “the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure, systems and applications which are vital to an organization after a disaster or outage.”

Disaster recovery plans are very important in order to bounce back as quickly as possible after a disaster strikes. Natural disasters, security breaches and malware can sometimes irrevocably upend a business. Have safety precautions in place for natural disasters, violent events and active shooters, etc. Business continuity plans, on the other hand, are defined as “documented procedures that guide organizations to respond, recover, resume and restore to a pre-defined level of operation following disruption.” More than half of business without a business continuity plan fail within three years after a disaster.

2. You aren’t prioritizing the cybersecurity of your business or organization.

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t read about some data breach or another. With brilliant, cutting-edge technology comes a thousand brilliant hackers and cyber threats. Prioritizing the cybersecurity of your business is an integral component of your business continuity plan. There are several ways of safeguarding your employees, shareholders and network, such as threat hunting and penetration testing. Again, these two terms are often confused or inaccurately combined into one effort, even though they are quite different. Penetration testing is the process through which security professionals seek out and identify vulnerabilities that a hacker could utilize to invade a network. Threat hunting, on the other hand, takes a more proactive approach; it is the intentional process during which a team (in-house or outsourced) looks for threats that already exist within their organization’s current IT infrastructure.

There are a variety of ways you can boost your cybersecurity for the days to come.

Operating a business is as complex and multifaceted as the humans who run them and interact with them, and thus a solid business continuity plan must be in place. A weak plan can result in disaster and organization-wide failure. Don’t let your plan fail you.

Check out the rest of the Secure360 blog for everything you need to know on business continuity, cybersecurity, malware and more. Don’t forget to leave your ideas in the comments below on why your plan is foolproof!