Amidst the pandemic, businesses have had to scramble to transform workplaces with new tools and platforms that enable virtual collaboration and communication from home offices. For many businesses, this change happened swiftly and tools needed to be implemented before technology, compliance, or legal teams could assess the risk and put proper measures in place. 

The change has introduced challenges – including known cybersecurity gaps and issues around data sharing. Further, the introduction of a home office “shadow IT” environment, in which employees independently – and often with good intentions – configure settings or misuse the platforms, can also put your operation at risk.

On top of these challenges, cybercrime remains a risk. Attackers are leveraging the current chaos; one report suggests a “bevy of new threats” including coronavirus-themed malware, “booby-trapped URLs”,  and credential scams. Even as some businesses are beginning to return to more normal workplace environments, your business remains vulnerable from these sophisticated attackers. 

Now is an ideal time to invest in security enhancements to protect your business - and also create a plan in the unfortunate case your business does suffer a breach. A solid backup and disaster recovery plan can make all the difference if - and when - your company suffers unexpected data loss and get you back on track as quickly as possible. 

Here, we share four steps to help you get started. 

1. Identify Critical Functions and Infrastructure

First, take stock of your critical IT functions. Create a list of the tools, platforms, processes, and infrastructure that is critical to your operations. 

This documentation can take many different forms, depending on your business. For example, a law firm's case management system might be considered a critical function. Or, a financial services firm might depend on the ability to transmit secure electronic transaction data. Consider all the IT systems upon which your functions rely, including website, software, records, internet, and internal servers.

This identification is one component of an effective business continuity plan. It can help you prepare and recover in the event of any future or further shifts to your operations from the pandemic, natural disaster, fire, cyberattack, or other threats.

2. Create an Emergency Contact List

Just as HR keeps up-to-date records of employee contact information, so should technology teams. Reach out to your staff to confirm individual contact information, including personal mobile number and email, in the event that a work outage limits contact through established channels. In addition, create an updated contact list for your critical vendors and suppliers that you might need to contact in the event of an emergency, including hardware, and internet providers.  

Make sure that the list is posted in a clear and accessible location, so that everyone who might be a part of recovery efforts has quick and easy access to it. Having this in a second, offline, central location will make it easier to get in touch with the people and teams you need to recover quickly. 

3. Prepare for Disaster

The best way to recover from a disaster is to prepare for one. Proactivity is protection. Spend time now to think about and address the most likely threats to your IT environment, such as natural disasters, power outages, pandemic, cybercrime, and human error (internal threats). As you catalog these risks, consider what steps can be taken now to prevent or limit outages in these scenarios. What threats will put your data and information in jeopardy? Which threats pose the greatest impact on your business? 

For example, if your greatest vulnerability is a power outage, consider your current UPS offering to keep your computers running. How long can you sustain power and what can be done to improve your offering? If your UPS or backup power fails, what is your next step?

As you prepare, think about the systems you need to continue doing business during or after a disaster. This includes cybersecurity and planning for how to create, manage, and store data backups. Keep confidentiality and integrity in mind – you’ll want to strike the right balance between staying secure and staying operational. As a technology leader, consider “interviewing” colleagues who have encountered disasters to solicit their insights and real-life recommendations.

As with documenting your critical functions and creating an emergency contact list, your disaster preparedness plan is another vital component of your business continuity strategy. This “anatomy of a business continuity plan” from CIO is a helpful starting place to draft your own custom plan. The article parses the plan into six general (and achievable) steps:

• Identify the scope of the plan.

• Identify key business areas.

• Identify critical functions.

• Identify dependencies across business areas and functions.

• Determine acceptable downtime for each critical function.

• Create a plan to maintain operations.

4. Partner with an Expert

It may be beneficial for your business to partner with an expert to build your backup and recovery plan, for on-premise or cloud backup. There's a range of providers available to suit your unique needs and requirements, including N8 Solutions.

We can help you create a custom backup plan that takes into consideration your unique needs around data, recovery, scalability, and speed. Partnering with a technology expert will help you determine the best plan for your organization and give you the resources you need to ensure your data is continually backed up and easy to recover in the event of an emergency. 

Whether you have an existing backup and recovery plan, creating a new one, or partnering with experts to build it, the final step is to test it. A plan is only effective if it works. Test your plan in a non-emergency scenario to identify gaps and improve the plan so that you know it will work if a disaster does strike. 

We’re all looking forward to a return to normalcy following COVID-19. But long after the risk of the pandemic subsides, cybercrime will remain a threat to your business and your reputation, not to mention costly downtime (according to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute!).

Now is the time to build a robust backup and recovery plan. While we can’t predict when or how disaster strikes, we can take steps to prepare. And we can help you get there. Please get in touch with us today.